Most Inspirational Moment
Probably seeing "The Treasury" at Petra with my own eyes after seeing so many photos over the years on the internet etc. A famous part of world history and impressive sight in it's own right. I also enjoyed the beauty and serenity of Wadi Rum in the evening at sunset.
Thoughts on Group Leader
Mikhled. Mikhled is an excellent guide in every aspect. Knowledge, organisation, humour, patience he has all the ideal qualities. It was a pleasure to be guided around Jordan and be educated about life in Jordan by Mikhled. We were in good hands.
Advice for Potential Travellers
Go Now! Despite the ongoing events in Gaza (at the time of writing in June 25) this is going on a long way from Jordan and has no direct impact upon Jordan, especially from a tourists perspective. Unfortunately it has had an impact upon toursim and visitors are staying away. This is however to our advantage because otherwise potentially busy sites like Petra are far less crowded than they could be, which made our visits better all round. I found Jordan to be perfectly safe and with very welcoming pleasant people. A few times, while on the coach, we'd be driving slowly through part of a town and young children would wave at us. It just made me smile. Other stuff... every hotel we stayed in had either "British" plug sockets or multi sockets that accepted a British/Euro/US plug without an adapter. The Wadi Rum desert camp tent had a Euro/US socket. My departure was 17th May. I did not see a single mosquito anywhere. I didn't actually see many insects at all during my visit. Apart from flies at Petra that were drawn to the horses used for rides from/to the main entrance. In the second half of May temperatures were already peaking at 40C in open places like Jerash and Petra. Good luck in high summer! Wadi Rum desert camp was not cold, about 18C at dawn but I believe it can go a lot lower. At our first briefing Mikhled assured me it was ok to wear shorts anywhere we were going in Jordan... and it was! I even saw some young women wearing well above the knee shorts and they didn't seem to be getting any grief about it. Bartering over the price of certain things is common practice in Jodan. As a Briton I am generally useless at this. Embrace it or just accept that traders may do well out of you. Even the nice coach we travelled around Jordan in had WiFi as did every hotel. No digital detox! No WiFi at Wadi Rum desert camp though but some did get a patchy network data connection. Payment by card was almost always an option in most establishments, hotels and restaurants but I got the feeling that cash still comes first in Jordan. Obtaining Jordanian Dinars from ATMs or exchange kiosks was not a problem. I had an extra day at the Holiday Inn Dead Sea resort at the end of the trip because of my flight arrangements. This turned out to be a small bonus and allowed some of us to see a little more in the area and of course a morning dip in the dead sea. Maybe you'd like to consider and extra day. Consideration of an extra day at the start of the trip might not be a bad thing either. Due to Royal Jordanian's flight schedules from the UK we didn't arrive at the hotel in Amman until something like 2am and were up only a few hours later for our morning trip to Jerash. Not unbearable but a quicker turnaround than ideal.