Jordan

Well we finally made it out of the Amman airport to check out the city for a few days and to see Petra. After the 8 day tour in Egypt we were pretty exhausted and needed a day to relax so we laid low in the hostel on our first day in Amman. Mind you we have not had seen much TV (besides the Olympics which were awesome, of course) so we were pretty excited to see that our hostel had a big TV and DVD player in the common room. We relaxed and watched The Bourne Identity but were even more excited when we discovered the 2 best TV stations in the world: Dubai 1 and mbc action (both owned by UAE networks, would you expect anything less from the UAE?). They played the greatest selection of the most random shows: Alias, Miami Vice, Viper (why didn't this show win an Emmy? it was so gloriously horrible), 3rd Rock From the Sun, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lost...and their commercial breaks were about 10 seconds long, it was spectacular. Like I said, we needed a day to veg out on the couch and it was so nice to be able to recharge our batteries while watching some quality TV.

Moving onto the city, Amman is really cool and the people were SO friendly. We went to some local markets near the hostel and made friends with the shop owners who recognized us every time we walked in. We also hiked up to the Citadel for some awesome birds-eye views of the city (Sarah is a sucker for a birds-eye view). The city is definitely up-and-coming, lots of big buildings being constructed and very clean and organized. It was nice to have a day to just wander around and see everything, but we were most excited for our 2 day trip to Petra...
We decided to hire a driver to take us from Amman to Petra instead of taking a bus because we would be able to stop at a bunch of other sight-seeing places along the way. He picked us up early in the morning and we headed South on King's Highway. The drive was incredible, there were views of beautiful canyons and valleys the entire way down and the sky was crystal clear. We first stopped at Mt. Nebo where we saw the Brazen Serpent sculpture. It is where Moses saw God first gave him a view of the promised land for the Jews and where he is said to be buried. It was amazing to stand on top of the mountain and be able to see all the way to Jerusalem. We also stopped at Madaba, Wadi Hidan Canyon, Kerak Castle, Dana Reserve, and Ash Shubak Castle, all of which were amazing. At Kerak Castle we spoke with a girl from Petra who was about our age - she approached us as we were exploring just to say hello and ask where we were from. She was so excited that we were visiting her home country and she wished us safe travels, it was truly a warm welcome and a great example of the hospitality of everyone we encountered in Jordan.

After a full day of driving and sight-seeing we arrived in Petra. The owner of our hostel was really nice and told us that we were lucky to arrive when we did because we would be able to see "Petra by Night" which only happens once or twice a week. We obviously signed up to go and headed towards the entrance once it became dark. We walked down the 800 meter entrance path that was only lit by small candle lanterns so we could not see very far ahead of us. All we could really see was the massive rock walls to our sides and the thousands of brillant stars above us. Even though we could not see much we both had goosebumps because of the anticipation and the amazing atmosphere surrounding us. All of a sudden there it was, the Al-Khazneh (the Treasury, the main sight) surrounded by 1500 candle lanterns. It was breath-taking. A flutist came out and played a song while we all sat around the Treasury under the stars, I cannot describe how amazing it was to be there...words really cannot capture how we felt.
After the evening show we could hardly wait to see it during the day. We awoke very early to the sounds of prayers coming from every mosque in the city, as it was the last day of Ramadan and all of the Muslims were praying and celebrating with their families. We headed for Petra early to try to beat some of the crowds and were lucky enough to hop onto a 2 hour tour that would teach us the history behind Petra, but would also give us plenty of free time to explore on our own. We rode horses down As-Siq, the 800 meter path that we had walked down the night before, and were told by the tour guide that all of the rocks were formed naturally by water and sand. He pointed out some rock formations in the shapes of camels and elephants, and also showed us an alter that was used for marriage. When we made it to the end of As-Siq to the Treasury that we had seen the night before we were once again speechless at its beauty. Seeing it in the daylight was simply amazing, it was so huge and in excellent condition for being carved into the rock in the 1st century BC. Among the carvings was a calendar and an urn to represent the tombs of the dead who are buried at Petra. And the Treasury is just the beginning of Petra - there are so many more carvings and temples, we walked around for about 6 hours and still felt like we could have spent another whole day to really see and explore everything from the Street of the Facades & the Theatres, Urn and Palace Tomb, Colonnaded Street, the High Point of Sacrifice, and the Monastery. We hiked for about 30 minutes up a mountain to get to the Monastery that overlooked all of Petra, the views were so picturesque. We found ourselves just sitting in silence on top of the hill taking in all of the sights, neither of us could really believe how sacred it is and how immense the carvings are. Sarah and I both agree that Petra is the most amazing thing (so far) that we have ever seen...
We both could have sat on top of the hills overlooking Petra for hours but alas we had to head back to Amman to catch our flight to Delhi the next morning. On the way back our driver suggested that we stop off at the Dead Sea to see the sunset and of course there was no way we could turn that down. We stopped off at a beautiful beach and could not resist swimming in the Dead Sea and it was awesome - the water was bathtub warm, probably 80 degrees, and SO salty that we floated right to the top without even treading any water. We floated in the water, looking at Jerusalem in the horizon, and watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life...it was definitely one of those moments where Sarah and I looked at each other and said "we are so lucky".
I daresay that this was the best day of the trip and I will never forget it. We loved Jordan, it is not necessarily one of those places that is talked about as a tourist attraction very often but it was incredible and we just wish that we had more time there to see even more. Our advice to you is GO TO JORDAN!