Amman is extremely spread out and very westernised compared to anything in Syria, complete with modern cars, and the usual array of western junk food outlets. It also appears to be about 30% more expensive than Syria.

We ventured out of the hotel after our first shower in a few days, and had a big walk around the central area of Amman. We soon discovered that 1) the city is dead on a Friday (Holy day) – there was hardly anyone on the streets and nothing open & 2) The City is very hilly, and the hills are very steep. Nonetheless, it’s a very pleasant city and walking around the quite streets was quite a treat. We found a Wimpy (which was one of the few places open), and pigged out on friend chicken and burgers. We then took a service taxi up to an Internet café we’d been told about. Service taxi’s follow set routes and are usually a different colour to regular taxis (in this case white as opposed to yellow). They tend to set off when full and are willing to drop you off anywhere on the route and pick you up if there is space. The big advantage is that they are very cheap. The big disadvantage is finding out where they go! We managed to get all the information we needed (written in Arabic) from a man at the hotel.

The Internet café, called Books@cafe was a real surprise. It was a really modern, "yuppie" hangout, with an excellent bookshop, cheap Internet access (JD2 per hour or JD4 per hour on Friday) and a superb coffee shop – like one of those fancy American places with all kinds of flavours.

We checked and sent email, drank "fancy" coffee and even read some English newspapers. I think we ended up spending most of the day there. Good for a change.

In the evening we went back to the restaurant we went to last night and drank quite a few Amstel beers and enjoyed more superb Arabic fare.

We got up early this morning and teamed up with Peter the Aussie, Carlos the Mexican and a South African guy. We took two buses to the Dead Sea – which took about an hour. We entered a place called the "Dead Sea rest House" for JD2.5, which was quite nice, with plenty of facilities (bar, showers, etc).

The Dead Sea is beautiful. The day was really calm and the views, although a little hazy from the heat, were fabulous. "Swimming" in the Dead Sea is a truly weird experience. As soon as you enter you are reminded, by the high salt content, of all the cuts and tiny "nicks" on your body (basically they bloody sting). It’s almost impossible to swim as you float so high in the water, so the best thing to do is lie on your back and just float around. Very relaxing. It was relatively quiet so it was good to just float around for a while. A few of the lads managed to get the water in their eyes and by the look of it, it was very painful.

When you get out of the Dead Sea you dry quickly in the heat and are left with a horrible itchy coating of salt. I couldn’t get into the shower quick enough to wash it off.

We sat around for a while and had a drink, but the intense heat and hordes of flies, which decided to pester us, encouraged us to get dressed and leave.

We waited for a bus and eventually go one directly back to Amman. The drive through the mountains was pretty spectacular and sometimes I wondered if the bus would be able to make it up some of the steeper slopes.

In the evening we popped back to Books @café and then onto the "usual" restaurant for more good food and more good beer!

We got up early again and went to the Police H.Q. to get a 3-month residence stamp in our passports. We had heard these would allow us entry to Petra for 1JD instead of 25JD. I doubt it’s true, but we decided it was worth the effort as the Police H.Q. was opposite the bus stop anyway. The process was easy and took about an hour. Lots of Iraqi people were coming and going whilst we sat and waited, getting their passports updated.

Our bus to Petra took 4 hours and 2 punctures. Quite good apparently! We followed the desert highway, which was basically a straight road through flat desert, but the last hour or so was through mountains .We got there late in the afternoon and decided to stay at the Twassi Inn, as recommended by some other travellers. Peter the Aussie had decided to team up with us.

The Twassi hotel is pretty nice and clean and is reasonable value. I think we paid 3JD each for a four-bed room. Me, Nick, Peter and another Aussie shared a large room with a good view of Petra and the town of Wadi Musa.

We ventured out briefly in the evening and ate a pricey, crappy meal at a small place in town. We went back to the hotel and watched "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". Apparently everyone who visits Petra must watch this, as the final part is shot at Petra.

The other Aussie, Chris, who is sharing our room got into Petra for JD1 (using his residency stamp) but it took him a lot of arguing and hassle apparently. He’s definitely a master of bullshit and he annoyed me a bit by bragging about his miserly scams to save money. Then he would tell us how he’s earned loads of money teaching in Ireland. I immediately took a disliking to him.

Petra is a unique 2,000-year-old rock-carved city, which was once the capital of the Nabataean Arabs. It is a breath-taking, never to be forgotten place.

It flourished for over 400 years around the time of Rome and Christ, until it was occupied by the Roman legions of the Emperor Trajan in 106 AD. Petra contains over 800 individual monuments that were mostly carved from the kaleidoscopic sandstone by the technical and artistic genius of the Nabataeans. The wealth and political power of this indigenous Arab people derived from their control of the international trade routes that linked China, India and Southern Arabia with the wealthy Mediterranean markets Greece, Rome, Egypt and Syria

Visiting Petra certainly was the highlight of the trip. We got up at 5:30 a.m., had a quick breakfast in the hotel and were pretty much the first people to enter. The entrance fee for two days is a hefty JD25, but we just paid it. We didn’t even try the residency "scam" because we’d been told that they had cottoned onto it due to so many people doing it, and we just couldn’t be bothered.

The siq, which is a 2km walk through the mountain, is fantastic. It winds around huge steep walls and gets quite narrow in parts. The 1^st major site, The Treasury (or Al Kazneh) is really well preserved and is an awesome sight when you see it for the first time, as you approach the end of the siq. It was even better due to the fact that there were hardly any people there.

We decide to do the "hard" walking today to the Monastery, which is one of the further major sites in Petra. It was a fairly long and occasionally steep walk through the mountains and we observed many other caves, tombs and monuments along the way, which we would investigate later on. It really is a fascinating place. Only a few Bedouin people were wandering around, setting up their tea stalls or trinket stands, and we began to appreciate our early rise.

It took us about 40 minutes to reach the Monastery – which is equally spectacular as The Treasury – and we sat at a small tent with some local Bedouin and three Canadians who had also took the initiative and made and early start. We ambled around the area for a while and then walked to the top of a hill, right on the edge of Wadi Arabia for a breathtaking view across the mountains into Israel.

We walked back down after plenty of exploring and by this time (11:30), the place was swarming with tourists (of all shapes, sizes and nationalities), donkeys, horses, camels, drinks tents, and even the odd vehicle. Now we really were glad we’d made the early start.

We walked back out of the siq, all feeling quite tired and it was about 12:30 by the time we left. We’d been walking for over six hours, but some people were only just entering (no doubt after eating their full cooked package-tour breakfast!).

The nearest place to eat, which looked decent, was Pizza Hut (we laughed but were too hungry to refuse). It was pretty good value and we gorged for an hour or so. Nick ate a large vegetarian pizza all to himself – I've never seen him eat so much!

We got back to the hotel just as the heat was getting really nasty and we couched all afternoon and watched "The Full Monty" on video.

In the evening we had the hotel buffet, which was really good and filling, and then crashed out about 10:00. Last night Chris, the other Aussie sharing our room, snored like a wild bear. I confronted him about it and he said "Me – snore – I never snore". When Peter and Nick confirmed his snoring he gave us explicit instructions to throw something at him if he started again.

We made another early start and again, we were pretty much the first people into Petra. We climbed to the High Places of Sacrifice and spent the morning scrambling around and viewing the other parts of Petra, which we hadn’t seen yesterday. Very enjoyable and well worth the early start to avoid the crowds, which seem to start arriving after 10:00.

We left the Siq at around 12:30 again, and went back to Pizza Hut (again) and then went back to the Hotel and couched watching videos (again)!

I can definitely recommend spending at least two days in Petra, as one day just isn’t enough, and although we felt quite knackered at the end of day 2, it’s definitely worth getting up really early and getting in at 6:00 when the gates open. The only fault with Petra is the adjoining town of Wadi Musa – where everything is expensive and it seems like everyone wants to rip you off. I would have liked to visit Petra a few decades ago to see how it was before the hotels and tourists arrived, and when the Bedouin still lived in the caves. Still – I have to be thankful that I had the chance to visit such a marvellous place.

Later in the afternoon we visited the Internet Café (which was twice as expensive as in Amman), and then I had a quick kick around at football with some kids, until put their ball on a roof, at which point I quickly left.

It’s quite sociable at the Twaissi Inn, and in the evening we sat around watching videos and chatting. There were some funny characters there. One strange looking German lad, who constantly scrounged everyone’s cigarettes, was nicknamed "The Bulldog", because we decided he had "a face like a Bulldog licking piss off a thistle"! He stunk a little and had a weird look about him – dreadlocks and a really flat face – he almost looked like "Predator" (without his mask on!).

Another early start to catch the bus down to Wadi Rum. It cost JD2. The bus driver was a really miserable git (unusual for the region) and wanted and extra 500 fils for baggage. We told him where to stuff it. The bus stopped at a small shop in the middle of the nowhere for us to buy supplies (no doubt a commission earner for the driver) and then dropped us off on the highway at the turning for Wadi Rum. The bus was supposed to take us all the way, but said he couldn’t but not to worry as another bus would pick us up. This turned out to be complete bullshit, and we ended up getting lifts from local enterprising Bedouin (who were lying in wait for us), in the back of their pick-up trucks. I think they charged us around 1JD each, but the journey was pleasant in the open backed truck – even though the air was very cool.

Wadi Rum is a vast desert area with huge, vertical flat-topped mountains surrounding it. It’s a remarkably beautiful place with many interesting rock formations, wide-open valleys and fantastic views. The sheer size of the whole area is awesome, and of course the fact that this was Lawrence of Arabia’s "stomping" ground, adds to the atmosphere.

The town of Rum is the only settlement in the area, and consists of a small village and the official tourist lodge. We paid 1JD to enter, and this entitled us to a free cup of tea or coffee! The man serving drinks was another rude, miserable idiot. I don’t know who he thought he was by shouting at people and grabbing their cups, but it didn’t rub with me and I soon told him what I though of him. He wasn’t very happy (as I think he understood exactly what I called him!) and complained to his boss. I explained his attitude and apologised for my own "outburst". I think the drink bloke got the bigger telling off.

There was a group of six of us from the Twassi – Nick Peter Tiffany, two other Australian lads and me. We decided we all wanted to go out into the desert for a day and explore then camp out overnight. The options where to stay in the "official" Bedouin camp, or to strike up a deal with a local Bedouin to sort us out. We "shopped" around a bit, and ended up deciding to deal with a bloke called Aodh. He took us back to his house for tea and to sort everything out. After much discussion and questioning we struck up a deal. He would take us around Wadi Rum for the day in his pick-up for 5JD each, would organise food for us for 2.5JD each, drop us off at a nice camping spot and then pick us up in the morning for 1JD each. It took quite a while to sort things out because the two Aussie lads and Tiffany (later to be know as Tiffany Tight Wad!), wanted to know every minute detail and continually questioned details about money, food, etc, etc. I started to get a bit pissed off with them, but kept my mouth shut – I’d already had enough arguments for the day and it was only 10:30 am!

We drove around and walked through the desert for most of the day. The sun was extremely hot and it was quite hard going. Wadi Rum us a truly magnificent place. We climbed to a place known as Lawrence’s well for some fantastic views and visited various rock formations such as natural arches and narrow chasms. There were quite a few four wheel drives and pick ups driving around and plenty of people doing camel treks, but the place is so big it was very easy to get away from it all.

Later on we stopped of for dinner, which Aoud prepared for us while we watched a beautiful desert sunset. He had told us in the morning that we would eat fish – which sounded interesting (fish in the desert?). It actually turned out to be tinned sardines! We all laughed, but it went down very well as we were all starving. We also ate tomatoes, tinned humus and plenty of bread. Later on we all wished we had bought some chocolate along.

After sundown we found a good place to sleep and Aoud, our guide left us. It was a full moon that night, so it was very bright. There was no wind and it wasn’t too chilly. We managed to gather enough dead wood to get a fire going, and due to some very keen wood gathering throughout the evening, we managed to keep it going until late. We sat around brewing up tea, chatting and telling stories and jokes. The occasional 4WD pulled up and local men would come to say hello. We’d been told that bandits occasionally came over the border from Saudi Arabia (which was nearby), but we didn’t have any trouble.

I couldn’t believe how much light there was with the full moon out and how quiet it was. I was really glad that we had opted to do this rather than sleep in the tourist camp. I think we put the fire out and got to sleep around 11:00. I saw loads of shooting stars and slept pretty well – it’s so quiet that you can hear your ears buzzing. I did hear a dog barking in the night, but other than that it was extremely peaceful.

In the morning we set fire to our remaining wood/scrub and brewed up the remains of our tea. I really enjoyed Wadi Rum and could have mellowed out there for a few more days if necessary. Auod picked us up early and we got back to Rum in time for the early bus to Aqaba.

We arrived in Aqaba at about 8:30 and had breakfast while the group split up looking for accommodation. The Aussie's didn't want to spend much money so they ended up in some grubby dive. For something like 50p per night more, Nick, Mark (a portly American bloke) and I stayed in the Hotel Jebal, which was next door and appeared to be the best of the budget bunch. The showers were hot and pleasant - apart from a huge resident cockroach and no lights.

We wandered around for a while in the afternoon, but it was really hot and humid, so not for too long. We made phone calls home, did half an hour of email on the Internet, and then had a huge feast at "Chili House".

Aqaba is strange place. Some of it is a relaxed seaside resort and the other half is a busy harbour town. The humidity is noticeable after the dry heat of the desert and although it was in the mid thirties, it was winter! I wouldn’t like to see what it’s like in the summer.

In the evening we met up at the Pakistan restaurant for some mediocre curry, and then went to a bar called Harvey’s – a sort of Hard Rock style place – to celebrate Peter’s birthday. The place was full of British soldiers on their first days off after six weeks of desert training. This potentially could have been a recipe for disaster, but as it turned out the atmosphere was OK. We had a few beers and then ambled back to the hotel quite late.

Did a few chores in the morning then took a taxi with Mark and Tiffany to the Royal Jordanian Dive Centre – about 12 km’s down the coast towards the Saudi border. We hired snorkels and swam at the reef, which was very close to the shore for a while. The sea life was excellent and we saw loads of different fish, including Lion-fish, Parrot-fish, Trumpet-fish and Clown-fish.

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