Jordan is highly underrated as a travel destination. Petra was stunning to see in real life. And it's fascinating that we really don't know that much specifically about the people who lived there. They were on the fringe of the documented world at that time.
Jordan has many incredible locations. Petra and the wadi rum desert are the most known, but there is much more than that. This land had an eventful history and that shows (from roman ruins to ancient muslim castles).
It is also detached from most conflicts in the region.
We went there with my girlfriend around the beginning of the year. It was a very nice trip as a whole, but I feel obliged to express my discontent about how aggressive are the merchants and salespeople at the touristic places there.
You very much feel like you're seen as a walking wallet when you're walking in Petra and the huge amount of merchants selling souvenirs there - inside the site (which is an unpleasant sight on its own) - begin to talk to you uninvited to convince you to buy their stuff. Same thing for wadi rum, when you see how the different "bedouin guides" are neatly organized to sell you an "experience". It sadly feels very unauthentic at the moment when you're looking for the opposite.
For sure that's something to be expected from most touristic places in the world, but I felt that this behavior was particularly present there. As a whole, I found relation to local people you depend on (to eat, to move, to sleep or to visit) to be hit or miss, with a lot of misses (but also two incredibly nice guys on two separate occasions, so I cannot generalize).
Just to compare with a neighboring country, I also visited the Palestinian territories a few year before and did not have the same experience at all, quite the contrary even.
That was just my experience and I know someone who also visited there around the same time with a better experience. She rented a car (we used local buses), and stayed less time in the most touristic places but much more time than us in the north.
I would advice people wanting to plan a trip there to do the same thing.
The last day, we payed an expensive guide for a tour in the remaining locations we did not have time to visit. This guide was helpful and it was a more relaxing day than the rest of our trip (which lasted around 10 days, I don't remember exactly), so I guess having a local guide also helps.
\End of my rant about the caveat of tourism in Jordan
Well, if anything, the experience may be more authentic of how a visitor to a place like Petra while it was still a living city may have felt like this way :)
Yep. In some places viewing strangers as a sales opportunity is completely alien to the local traditional culture, but I don't think Middle Eastern cities are amongst those places.
I visited Jordan after Cairo, so compared to the hustle culture of the largest city in the Arab world, Jordan was refreshing!
But yeah, if you visit places without tourism infrastructure, like the West Bank outside of Jerusalem/Bethlehem, it's much more people going about their daily life in the midst of various levels of physical and cultural history.
Absolutely - and regarding Jordan, whilst Petra was a definitely worth the visit, there's so much more to Jordan that has me wanting to return, not least, the people.
For those thinking of going to Petra, do yourself a favour and make sure you have at least a day to explore, the whole site is huge. We were there for two days and there was probably more we could have seen.
However if you are not in moderate shape then you might struggle with some of the stuff out to the edge, unless you fancy taking a donkey up the hills.
