Wadi Rum and other Jordan photos

After Petra we spent a day in the Wadi Rum desert. Wadi Rum is where Lawrence of Arabia fought in WWI and also where the movie of the same name was filmed.

We took a pretty exciting 4x4 ride out into the desert and rode up and down the sand dunes. We stopped on top of a dune and had some tea and watched the sunset, then proceeded to our Bedouin camp to spend the night.

We had a great night in the camp, eating some good food, playing cards, and hanging out around the fire with our Egyptian and Bedouin hosts (and the half dozen other tourists who were foolish enough to brave the desert in winter with us) who were really nice. We also walked around outside the camp (partially because moving kept us warm) and had the really humbling experience of being quite alone in the middle of the desert.

Finally, the fire died down and I headed to sleep under 5 blankets and wearing every piece of clothing I brought to the middle east. It was probably the coldest night I have ever experienced in my life, but it was still a really amazing night in the desert.

4x4 ride through the desert

Camels roaming in the desert canyons

Sunset at Wadi Rum

And some other Jordan highlights:

We had hummus for almost every meal - here, the hummus, at Hashem restaurant in Amman may have been the best of all

View of the Sea of Galilee, Israel, Syria, and Lebanon from Umm Qais Jordan

Roman amphitheater, Jerash

Two thousand year old Roman columns, Jerash

More Roman ruins, Jerash

View from hill in central Amman, largest flagpole in the world

Petra

One of the highlights of Jordan definitely - and probably of my whole trip to the Middle East - was our visit to Petra.

Petra is an ancient Nabatean city in southern Jordan famously described as "a rose-red city half as old as time". It is deservedly one of the (new) 7 Wonders of the World. While many may not know the name Petra (I did not until recently), it was prominently featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and other movies so often people at least recognize its likeness.

Petra's origin is still somewhat unclear, though evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other sources suggest it was founded around 300 B.C. and was at its height from around AD50 to 300. While the Nabateans were a distinct culture, Petra served as a trading crossroads at a key juncture for traders coming across the Sinai from Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, and to the prominent Greek and Roman lands to the north. As a result, Petra became extremely wealthy, which can be seen today in the intricate carvings of amazing magnitude. The architectural influence of each of these cultures (Greek and Roman columns, Egpytian pyramidal designs, etc) are also visible.

The primary attractions today are the amazingly preserved ruins of buildings which due to the high quality construction and arid desert conditions are still almost perfectly preserved. The city is literally carved into canyon walls, and runs for several miles through the desert. There are hundreds of tombs, statues, buildings, an amphitheater, temples, and more carved out of the wall.

Like Machu Picchu (probably the only place in the world I have been that is comparable to Petra), the interplay of the beautiful natural setting and the ancient cityscape is absolutely incredible.

The major ruins of Petra are approached through a long narrow canyon known as the Siq. This 900km hike is pretty spectacular in itself.

We did the Siq hike once at night (while the candlelit walk was pretty spectacular, the freezing rain took a little away from the atmosphere) and again during the morning. As Petra is in a flood plain, the Nabateans built a system of dams to prevent flash floods from filling the canyon and also carved piping / drainage systems into the canyon walls to fill the village. At the end of the Siq stands the Treasury, the most famous and best preserved landmark.

Full view of the Treasury - massive and beautiful

Tombs and temples lined the incredibly colorful pink canyon walls


More intricately carved massive ruins


An overview shot of one tiny portion of Petra to show the massive area it covers


The gang in some cave/tombs

We also hiked up to the "Monastery", an area overlooking the ruins on one side and the canyons on the other. A pretty long hike, but the view was spectacular.


Finally, a much needed rest with the Jordanian flag in the background

Dead Sea

We spent a day at the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth at 1,000 feet below sea level and the saltiest body of water on the planet.

Floating in the Dead Sea was a really bizarre experience that is hard to describe. The water is around 6 times more dense than normal salt water, and as a result it is impossible to sink. As you can see in the pictures below, it's possible to float without any effort - as Jason and I both have both our arms and legs out of the water. It's also possible to sit Indian style in the water and to just float. Very strange but cool feeling. The water is also so salty that if you have any open cuts or wounds, or if you have recently shaved, the salt will cause painful burning.

We visited the Dead Sea on the Jordan side. The opposite side of the Dead Sea is Israel (under the sunset below). There are many more resorts on the Israeli side, but the view from the less crowded Jordan side was quite nice.

We also did some sightseeing in the Dead Sea area. We headed to the top of Mt. Nebo, where Moses died after looking out over the Promised Land.

The view was cool and you could see a number of ancient towns including Jericho, Bethlehem and Ramallah.The terrain on the Jordanian side was quite isolated and was primarily desert canyon.
Finally, we played around an ancient castle, Kerak, that overlooked a crossroads on ancient trading routes for the past two thousand years.

Very cool castle, but tough to capture its size and antiquity.

Different countries are different*

We spent a day in Amman, the capital of Jordan and a city of 2 million people. Some highlights included a trip to the Citadel on a hilltop overlooking the city and a Roman amphitheater still almost entirely intact that could seat 3,000 people, just on a random street in the middle of the city surrounded by shops, restaurants and city folk going about their normal lives. We also met up with two other classmates who are traveling in the region at a really cool nightclub that had fresh all you can eat sushi.

We also went to two really interesting sets of Roman ruins at Jerash and Umm Qais. Both were built around the 3rd century BC. Not only were they huge and largely still intact (desert air good for protection - many of the stone streets still have the wheel indentations from where Roman chariots wore them down still visible) but they also have so much history. An area might have a wall built by the Greeks protecting a Roman fountain that had a Byzantine church built on it that was turned into an Islamic mosque that became an Ottoman fort.

Jordan seems very different than Oman.

First, it is noticeably poorer. Jordan does not have any significant oil, so it is forced to rely on tourism and standard trade and industry to sustain the economy. And tourism has been slow over the last 6 years as the conflict in the middle east has worsened and after there were a few bombings in Amman a few years ago.

Secondly, the refugee situation in Jordan is much more immediately visible. Jordan has ~6 million Jordanian residents. It also has ~2 million Palestinian refugees and ~500k Iraqi refugees. While Jordan is one of only a few Arab countries who recognize Israel, the number of refugees we have met who refer to their home as being in territory occupied by Israel is a little unsettling. The two countries do have generally peaceful relations though.

Third, while both countries have a generally arid landscape, Oman has a large stretch of coastline where most of the people live. Jordan has only a few dozen kilometers of sea access, and most of the population lives inland along the north-south stretch running along the Jordanian Valley down to the Dead Sea, then south along the border with Israel to the coast. The need to secure water and lack of good land for farming are clearly evident.

Jordan, maybe more than any other place I have been, has an incredibly dense past. Jordan was controlled at various times by Mongols, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Byzantines, Jews, Christian crusaders, Islamic caliphates, Ottomans and the British before finally becoming its own kingdom in 1948.

We went to lunch by one of he historical sights in Umm Qais. We had an incredibly beautiful panorama from our table. Not only that, it hammered home how close together everything is. Sitting in Jordan, we could also see the West Bank (Palestinian territory), Israel, the Golon Heights (Israel / Syria dispute), Lebanon, and Syria. Our guide then showed us the border in 1948, the path the Israeli tanks took through Jordan to Syria in the 1967 war, and the current borders. It really hammered home how Israeli/Palestinian conflict is such a common fact of day to day life here. In Dubai and Oman, it felt much more removed, even though those countries do
not even officially recognize Israel as a country. Looking around the intersection of all these countries, you can start to see why...


Actual bullet point on key takeaways slide in global business class at Stanford