The King's Highway

Last Thursday morning, Jessica and I left Amman with a Canadian woman, a Japanese woman and a Dutch guy to head down the King's Highway to Petra.  We paid a little bit extra so that we could also make stops at Mount Nebo and the Dead Sea along the way.  We first drove through the town of Madaba, which features a Byzantine Church with an old mosiac map of the Holy Land on the floor.  From there, we went to Mount Nebo where Moses apparently climbed to see the promised land right before he died.  He is apparently buried somewhere on the hillside, but no one knows exactly where.  There is a church that was built in his honor, but it is currently closed for restoration of the mosiac floors.  The best part of the site was the view of the valley below all the way to the Dead Sea, Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  Even though there was a map, I couldn't exactly tell which city was which, but it was still an amazing vista.

From Mount Nebo we drove down through the winding hills to the Dead Sea down below.  You could really get a sense of the landscape that Abraham, Moses and Jesus walked through and lived in so many thousands of years ago.  It was exactly how I pictured it from reading and hearing all those old stories in the bible.  At the Dead Sea, we only stopped for a few minutes to take pictures before getting back on the road.  Even though we were in Jordan, we had to pass through several checkpoints while driving through the area.  I guess it's a really sensitive region being so close to the border with Israel.

Our last stop before making it to Petra was Kerak Castle, which was built in 1136 as a Crusader fortress.  The place was huge and we only had half an hour to walk around so I didn't even get to see half of it.  All the same, it was one of those spots where you could really feel the history of the place.  There were so many small rooms and tunnels that I could just picture the Crusaders storming through on horseback after returning from the battlefield  I wish we'd had more time to spend there, but since I was still recovering from my stomach issues I was pretty tired after walking around.

Jessica, the Dutch guy, Hans, the Japanese woman, Mari and I were all staying at the same hotel and after checking in and having dinner we made our way down to the hill for the "Petra at Night" event that is put on three times a week.  Down there we randomly met up again with the Canadian woman and walked by candlelight the two kilometers through the narrow ravine to the start of the ancient city of Petra.  It was so dark that it was hard to get our footing or really see much of the scenery around us.  We could see the high cliffs rising all around until they finally opened up into a clearing where the famous Treasury building stands.  In the plaza in front of the massive stone facade were hundreds of candle luminaries, which all the visitors were instructed to sit behind.  The organizers then gave us tea and played some traditional Bedouin instruments before reciting an old call-and-response poem about Petra.  The acoustics in the stone clearing were amazing and it was pretty magical to be there with all the candles around right after Christmas.  However, it was also pretty chilly and I think we were all rather glad once we got back up to the hostel after the show.

The next morning, Jessica, Hans, Mari and I got up early to go back to Petra for the day.  We once again met up with the Canadian woman and walked together through the ravine known as the Siq.  This was the passageway that the caravan traders took to get to the city when the Nabataeans built Petra more than 2,000 years ago.  Seeing the Treasury emerging through the tunnel walls was even more breathe-taking when seen in the light of day.  The tomb is the city's most elaborate ruin, hewn directly into the sandstone cliff and standing at about 50 meters tall.  It is the image most people associate with Petra since it was featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  In the film it was supposedly the entrance to the final resting place of the Holy Grail.

After leaving the Treasury, we walked down the Street of Facades, past more royal tombs and the 7,000-seat Roman Theater.  The Nabataeans originally built the theater, but it was later expanded by the Romans.  We climbed up the hillside to go inside one of the more elaborate tombs and then walked toward the old market road, which is lined with several temple ruins.  We decided to stop there to eat the boxed lunches we had brought with us before beginning the long trek up to the Monastery, which is 800 steps up from the base of the city.  Dozens of hawkers tried to convince us to go by donkey, but we decided to hoof it and after about 45 minutes had made it to the top.  Once there it started to lightly rain so we checked out the tomb--the largest carved monument in Petra--drank some tea and then we made our way back down the hill and through the city.  It started to rain harder the farther along we got and since the sun was setting in half an hour we decided to call it a day. The owner of our hotel says it hasn't rained in Petra since April so I guess we got lucky?  For the last leg of the trip, Jessica and Mari decided to hire horses and it was fun to seem them galloping by as Hans and I walked to the exit.

Jessica convinced her horse minder to let her ride for a bit longer and Mari and Hans decided to take a cab home while I went off on my own to check out a nearby Turkish bath.  I didn't know the protocol since at Korean jimjibongs everyone goes naked so I hadn't bothered to bring a bathing suit along.  Apparently I could have worn it, but luckily since I didn't have one, they gave me a sort of sarong to wear instead.  I had never been to a Turkish bath before so I didn't quite know what to expect.  It turns out that they basically bathe you with the bonus of a massage thrown in.  I first went into a steam room where they poured water on my arms, legs and head.  They then brought me to a marble slab where I laid down and one of the attendants scrubbed me with a hard loofa.  After the scrubbing, she lathered me up and gave me a 20-minute massage.  Following another dousing of water, I was allowed to go into the shower to finish rinsing off.  It was definitely a nice, relaxing way to end a long day of sightseeing and warm up from the rain.