Title:	Jordan, Diving the Red Sea, Petra, crazy taxis
Region:	Middle-East
Countries:	Jordan
Date:	November 11, 1999
My Rating (out of 100):	70
	Hello again everyone, Sorry, it's a bit long again, but there's some interesting stuff in this one... I'm in Amman, the capital of Jordan at the moment and heading over to Jerusalem in Israel tomorrow morning. In fact, I'm actually taking a taxi to Israel. Israel is going through some interesting times at the moment. As you have probably heard, tensions with southern Lebanon are up and some bombing has been happening. The usual stuff... Also, Y2K is only 7 weeks away, and you know where all the freaks and zealots are going? Israel! The holy land, why not? At the moment, security is high and Israel has started deporting people they expect will cause problems. People who "might want to hasten Armageddon". So, anyone who they even thing might be part of a cult is getting the boot. But, back to my last days in Egypt. I spend a few days in Dahab doing some scuba diving and it was pretty good. The reef is right off shore and in spite of tourism killing the reefs, lots of fish and coral still exists. Excellent diving, but my favorite place for diving is still Byron Bay in Australia (not on the Great Barrier Reef). After leaving Dahab, I took a bus almost to the Israel border, then a taxi right to the border, walked across, took another 2 taxis to the Jordanian border, walked across again and then one last taxi to Aqaba, on the Red Sea. All this took 4 hours. It's the first time I have crossed overland through 1 country in about 20 minutes! And, I still had to pay the $20US exit tax from Israel! $1 per minute! Jordan is a great place, the people are super friendly and for the most part it's cheap. The government extorts $70US for a visa for Canadians, and you have to pay $30US for entrance to Petra. Obscene. In Aqaba I didn't do much, but I was invited to sit down in a shop by Fadel, a Palestinian, and we discussed politics (among other things) for several hours and he provided me with Turkish coffee and lovely cinnamon, cardimon and mint Jordanian tea. This type of thing is often the highlight of traveling these countries...just talking with the locals. And many Jordanians speak English quite well, which helps, since my Arabic needs a bit of work. Next, I went to Wadi Rum, a desert with break-taking mountains jutting out of it at right angles. There is a lot of rock-climbing, scrambling and trekking available. I only did scrambling, since you need your own climbing gear here to climb. It's a superb region and very remote. Much of Lawrence of Arabia was filmed here... Take a look here for some photos of Wadi Rum: http://www.petramoon.com/wadi_photo.html Next I shared a taxi to Petra, some 100km away. Our crazy taxi driver was late picking up some Japanese tourists in Petra and drove like a madman on the mountain highway up to Petra. Yikes. When we arrived at their hotel, some 15 minutes from Petra, he booted us out and told us to take another taxi. They must have been paying him a fortune! Ha. Well we got a free ride that far and found another taxi the rest of the way. Petra is a 2100 year old Rock city that was made famous by "Indiana Jones and the last Crusade" which had it's final scenes, when they get the holy grail, shot here. This photos is of "The treasury", which you might recognize from the movie. http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/MiddleEast/Jordan/Petra/PetraKhazneh.html Rock temples and houses dot the mountains and canyons in a huge area and it's quite a sight. The interiors of the temples are not as spectacular as some of the cave temples I have seen in India, but it's still a great place. Next, I caught a mini-bus to Amman and have been relaxing here even though there is not much to see. It's mostly just nice to meet some locals and I've had plenty of interesting conversations with people. The other day I met an Iraqi who was selling old Iraqi currency. He told me that when the UN imposed sanctions the old Iraqi Dinar dropped from being worth $3US to almost nothing. Saddam Hussain re-issued a new currency and the old currency was made illegal. I managed to buy 2 perfect 25 Dinar notes (for 50 cents) with a picture of saddam on them! Cool. However, the Iraqi said "Never use them in Iraq or they will kill you!". I don't plan on going to Iraq, even though the local buses make the trip to Baghdad in 10 hours. Very close to Amman! The man had a whole bunch of denominations and I had the great idea that they could be used for "iraqi-opoly". Playing monopoly with REAL Iraqi Currency would be the ultimate insult for poor Saddam. There are a lot of refugees from Iraq here and most of them can't really work and are very poor. Everywhere you see old Iraqi women selling individual cigarettes and trinkets on the streets to buy food. It's a bit sad that one governments idiocy has caused it's people so much suffering. (Jordan shares a border with Iraq) Anyway, that's the whole nine yards for Jordan.