Back on the couch blogging. The service at Beachcombers yesterday was quite disappointing ay. I’ll bitch about it on a different blog post 🙁
Now I’m a bit confused how to format the photos cause there’s so many! I’ll stick to slideshow because it’s less work for me, haha. ( April 2015 Update, Just changed for format of the photos 😉 )
Petra is beautiful.
I suggest you go early as the queues are horrendous after 10am, and it also gets quite hot later on. We got there at 7:45a.m, bought the tickets (AED250 for non-Jordanians, AED5 for Jordanians with valid ID) and walked in.
The ticket tells you that you can have a horse-ride one-way “included”. Just be a bit cautious because once you walk in, the bedoins (local men who uses a lot of eye-liner) will be calling you to jump on, and then they’ll start saying I’ll take you all the way to the Monastery and to here and there etc etc. You’ll be asked to tip them after, so I suggest you be firm and tell them you only want a horse ride to the Siq for 10AED max.
After that, walk 🙂 Walk, because it’s beautiful, and you can appreciate in your own time (not the horses), how amazing these red rocks are.
Once you get to the Treasury, it’s a jaw-dropping moment as it is a massive carved in stone monument, used to be temple of sorts. You can probably spend some time around this area as there are lots to see, souvenir stores, etc.
After that, I suggest you get a donkey/mule (like what we did) – bargain so that you don’t pay any more than 75AED to the Monastery and back to the Treasury. It is worth the money, because it’s a very long walk up and it’s very tiring, ha ha. I got a donkey and G got a mule, their names were Monica and Lewinsky – ha ha. Once you get to the foot of the hills and you start ascending, it gets a bit scary because it’s quite steep and a few times I thought I was gonna fall off 😀 Hold on tight! If you’re fit (and not lazy), by all means walk.
We get off at the top, and walk another 10-15 minutes to the peak which overlooks Israel. Breathtaking 🙂
The best part was going back down to the Treasury on the donkey/mule, because by then hoards of tourists were coming and they were all staring at us on the animals with the ‘Aw, why can’t I have one’, because it was sooooo hot by then, haha. One hand on donkey strap, one hand on umbrella, I was so comfortable 🙂
Once you walk back out to the Siq, the bedoins will be there hassling you to get onto their horses again. Be firm, bargain. No more than 10AED for a ride back out (again, only if you’re lazy like us haha).
One place you have to go once in your life 🙂 Go go.
(For movie buffs, the site is featured in films such as: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Arabian Nights, Passion in the Desert, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen….)
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