jordan day 4: petra

the reason i'm in jordan! since the very first time i saw a picture of the siq in petra, which is a narrow gorge that winds its way 1.2 km towards the ancient ruins of petra, i've always wanted to go there. so this is one item off my bucket list!

set off early in the cold morning, even before the sun was up!

after getting our tickets, we met our guide, samera who is actually a lecturer in a university and does guiding work on a part-time basis... he's quite good!

quite a long walk in, about 20 minutes, to the entrance of the siq

we have a voucher from our tickets, that allowed us to go on horseback for an additional fee (forgot how much extra), but we chose to walk coz that would give us the opportunity to listen to samera's explanation on the sites we passed, such as this ancient grave or shrine...

smells - frankincense (the yellow stone-like thingy) and other natural fragrant sources that was traded and passed through this area in the ancient times...

finally, arrived at the opening of the siq! so excited neh...!!

but first have to listen to explanation from samera...

irrigation system of the ancient times... 

for those who're too lazy to walk, can take the horse-drawn caravans through the siq...

the walk through the siq took about 40 minutes, with frequent stops for samera to explain things and for us to take photos...

it's quite a surreal experience walking through here... some of the spaces were very narrow (but still enough for the caravans to pass through lar). we can just imagine the ancient people passing through here to get to the ancient city of petra.

some of the shrines carved into stones along the siq...

there are other carvings on the wall along the siq... here lanky leila is comparing the size of her foot to the ancient man's! LOL

the irrigation used to be covered, but most parts have collapsed...

at the end of the siq, our first glimpse of the khazanah (or treasury)!

the characteristics of the facade includes roman, greek, islamic etc. it is unknown as to why or exactly when it was originally built, probably between 100 b.c. and 200 a.d. its arabic name "al khazanah" derives from one legend where bandits or pirates hid their loot in a stone urn high on the second level. significant damage from bullets can be seen on the urn. local lore attributes this to the bedouins, who are said to have shot at the urn in hopes of breaking it open and spilling out the "treasure" within. however, the decorative urn, turned out to be solid sandstone. another legend is that it functioned as a treasury of the egyptian pharaoh at the time of moses.

one for the photo!

one of my favourite shots from my camera...

from the al khazanah, we continued walking some more... petra was first established in around 6th century b.c. by the nabateans, a nomadic tribe who settled in the area and laid the foundations of a commercial empire that extended up to syria.

there were a lot of caves carved into the walls of the hills, with elaborate facades... these were all graves, belonging to rich families of the ancient times, as they believed in the afterlife. so by being buried in these elaborate caves, they're preparing for their next lives...

an example of a family burial ground. it's said the holes are much deeper than shown here, hence the believe that some were recycled, with bodies stacked on top of the previous decayed bodies...

a lot of nomads offering these "taxi" services...

a roman theatre, proof that the romans were here too!

royal tombs in the distance, on top of a small hill. we didn't go there, coz we were on our way to another site...

it was quite a long walk, and the sun was shining really brightly in the midday...

nearing the end of our long walk, here's a shot of the way we've just came from...

a syrian style building in ruins...

after an hour, we arrived at the starting point of our next leg of the visit...

lotsa climbing to do! now we understand why the "taxi" services were so much in demand!

it's up all the way...

a very long and difficult way up, but we still sucked it up and adamantly refused to take the donkeys!

further up, we kept looking behind us as the view was spectacular!

only sissies go up on donkeys! :P hehe... 

some parts are narrow and on stone steps...

while others are on dirt and sand...

the awesome views NEARLY made up for all our hardships!

after trekking for about an hour, the vendors along the route will start telling us, "10 more minutes, 10 more minutes". and i'd mutter under my breath (due to me being out of breath, not from being polite), "liar, i heard that 10 minutes ago!"

we were walking for so long and were so exhausted that we had to stop to catch our breath after just a few steps! at one point, we passed an ang-moh couple coming in the opposite direction from us and i asked them how long more before we arrived. the guy answered that we have some 30 minutes more!!! lovely lily and i (my 2 other travel companions, lanky leila and sweet sheila were far ahead in front of us coz they had better stamina) groaned a loud, "WHAT?!?" but the ang-moh girl said, "he's just kidding. don't listen to him. it's just ahead."

we didn't really believe her, but continued walking. then we turned a corner, looked up...

...and THIS loomed before us! we were speechless and just went like :O

ad-dayr (arabic for "the monastery") - deeply carved into a cliff face of the jabal ad-dayr, the facade represents one of the largest monuments in petra. it was built on the model of the khazanah, but here the bas-reliefs were replaced by niches to house sculptures.

the monastery was probably used as a biclinium for meetings of religious associations and certain rituals may have been conducted here. its construction likely dates to the early 2nd century a.d. during the reign of king rabel II, and an inscription found nearby suggests that it may have been built in memory of the divine king obodas II. the hall was re-used as a christian chapel and crosses were carved in the rear wall, thus the name "monastery" (dayr in arabic).

a lil' cafe just opposite the monastry, with seats in a cave...

a little hill further up, but lovely lily and i were too beat to attempt it! so we just sat at the cafe and waited for the other 2 to finish their exploration.

going down...

i think the donkey wanna buy a postcard... 

one last photo of the khazanah before going further into the siq again. the afternoon lighting was better than the morning light for this shot...

back in petra town, our driver brought us to this spring, said to be one of the springs created by moses when he struck his staff on a rock. nothing much to see actually and we weren't impressed. so we just took some quick shots to satisfy our driver and left after 2 minutes.

i was practically begging our driver to bring us to buy fresh fruits, as we've not been having much fruits this entire trip! so he brought us to this market... all fresh from the land!

we were so excited that we couldn't wait to eat them! so this was how we washed our fruits LOL

see all the happy faces! :D

giant pomegranates... very sweet too!

on the way down hill (we took the regular route this time, instead of through the desert!), our driver made a detour to show us this abandoned fortress.

then our driver made another detour, to his friends' shop. nothing much to see or buy there, so we just sat around drinking tea and tried to get their anti-social cat, miki, to come out to play with us. its very curious, but refused to let us pet her!

with no luck. but their other cat was very friendly...

back in amman, we realized we've not had dinner. so lanky leila and i bought a falafel each from a shop near our hotel. our last dinner in jordan before our flight the next morning.

so that concludes my jordan series! *phew* sorry it took so long. lotsa other things to post, so will try to update more often. stay tuned! ;)