I slept well at the Hotel Manar and no surprise as we had been travelling since early in the morning. Bettina and I had decided that an early meet at Heathrow would defy checks on terrorism. What it really meant was hanging around for hours at an airport on the boring side of things. However we haven't seen each other since our trip to see Bettinas' Mum earlier on in the year and so we have a lot to catch up on.

The flights were fine. We spent a lot of time spotting who was an Explore person. I had gotten it up to 9 potentials. One couple, Dennis and Barbara, we were very sure of and they had confirmed this was the case. We stopped briefly in Beirut to let people off before moving onto Amman.

We were met by Explore to help us through the visa process and then to pick up bags before the trip into Amman itself. It was cold and raining - not what I had expected and I was glad I had packed a fleece - despite the derision this had caused by those at home.

We travelled along a well paved dual carriage way passing signposts to Mount Nebo, Saudi and Iraq and realised we were in a very different place. The sides of the roads were sandy with boulders strewn about and the odd somewhat wiry bush. The houses all had lights in the shape of a crescent and star (the symbol for Islam) in their window and we presumed this was to signify their participation in Ramadan.

Naturally when we booked this trip we didn't check dates entirely and so, yes, we are here while Ramadan is ongoing. It will be interesting to see how this impacts on us.

The four of us arrive at Hotel Manar, my 7 other people had dispersed to their own lives as it transpires that the rest of the group are coming from a tour in Syria and joining us tomorrow. It was now about 11p.m and so we went to bed only to stir to the sounds of the call to prayer at dawn.

After the ubiquitous Explore breakfast which, whilst missing the chicken sausage element, was a strong contender in the orange squash pretending to be orange juice section, we set off to visit 3 desert castles. Leaving Amman, which is seemingly one mass of buildings tumbling up and down hillsides, we set off across the desert with our driver and Khaled our guide.

The desert is bleak, windswept, stony and completely barren. Suddenly all the Biblical stories made sense. The first of the 'castles' was really a 7th century motel and store for passing merchants from Saudi, Syria and Iraq. The man on duty was wearing a jellaba, the local headgear (keffiah) and a leather jacket - a bizarre combination. The second 'castle' was a bathhouse - again 7th century. It was built by a Prince and was ornately decorated inside with some beautiful frescoes including those of some fairly voluptuous, naked girls.....I reckon the Prince had built the place as a weekend stag retreat!!! The 3rd 'castle' was a fortress, which had amazing stone doorways, which were carved so that they hinged into the rock. It was the place that Lawrence had used as his HQ. It all seemed a bit open to the elements and I think I would have had to have had some serious interior design work and at least a handrail or 2 added before I would consider it as an HQ- which is probably why I go on Explore holidays rather than be an intrepid Explorer.

Despite it being Ramadan there are place to eat set up as suitable for tourists - this means we are paying a little more than we would for a meal usually I suppose but for 6JD we joined a running buffet where we had a chicken and rice dish, vegetables and some pretty good salads. Pudding was a massive disappointment -unless you are a fan of blamange

We then drove back across the desolate and barren desert. There really is NOTHING growing. There is just mile after mile of rock and pebbles, with the occasional Bedouin tent and herd of sheep or should that be a flock?

We drove to Jerash and the Olive Tree Hotel, which was high up in the hills surrounding the city. It was lush and green and very cold - so much so that the heating was put on in our rooms. I was feeling very weary and we did reading, snoozing and bathing until it was time to meet Laura, our tour leader, to sort out bits and pieces and then have dinner.

The rest of the group has been travelling together through Syria and some have also been together since the Lebanon and so they are quite established with each other. I had mezze and falafal sandwich for dinner and then the group went to play pool before turning in. I watched a couple of games and then hit the sack. We have a very busy day planned for tomorrow with a 7.30 a.m. leave.

The group all gathered for breakfast from 6.30 a.m. onwards. After cornflakes, fruit salad and toast with date jam I went outside to take photos and started chatting to the owner. B and I had assumed that the hotel had been around for a while, however it transpires that he built it in 1996 - either things are poorly built or don't survive very well!

Our first stop today was the Greco Roman City of Jerash.

It was fantastic. I have never been to a Roman City before and it was so well preserved. The theatre is almost immaculate, the temples and churches from Byzantine times with mosaic floors, the main forum and hippodrome with shops surrounding them and the beautiful colonnaded roads where you could see the grooves from the chariots and the man hole covers for dealing with the drainage. My experience of Romans has mainly been round bathhouses up until now and I found this thrilling. I could have stayed all day in just one of the theatres and absorbed the atmosphere. The other theatre had previously been the senate or where the council would have met. I thought the CC's might have rather liked it.

I think that I had two favourite parts - the pillars in the Temple of Artemis

which are twice as thick as a mans body and yet if you put your fingers into a crack you could feel swaying and the main fountain called the Nympheum where you could still see the frescoes on the stone. There was a large bowl shaped object at the front, which was used as a font and had been taken from one of the churches.

As we headed back to the pink bus the day was starting to warm up and we passed our German friends who we had seen yesterday at the Desert Castles - otherwise we had been the only other people at this site - magical.

So what are my impressions of Jordan so far? Well....on the whole it is barren and rocky, the hills gently roll with valleys that you know must have water charging down them when it rains. It is all a concrete sort of colour. In between are little square and whiter houses or Bedouin tents or in some towns a mixture of the two. Just at the point that you believe no one or nothing could eke an existence you see a Bedouin shepherd with a flock of sheep obviously surviving on virtually invisible vegetation. The Bedouin seem to live in a variety of homes ranging from traditional tents to what look like plastic covered benders.

Men are fairly visible dressed either in Western clothes or more traditionally. The Arab headdress is ubiquitous and usually in red. There are fewer women out and about they can be dressed in anything from full hiijab to Western clothing. There are young people but not the large numbers we have seen in the last couple of years in the East and it certainly feels like a country that is fairly much on top of itself.

Roads and the rest of the infrastructure that you would expect is well organised and efficient and it feels to us very much like a Mediterranean European Country rather than the Middle East. However everywhere there is rubbish, plastic bags all over the sides of the roads and various other plastic debris.

We drove on for about an hour to Mount Nebo,

which is from where Moses saw the Promised Land with the children of Israel. It was amazing to look across and see Jericho, the Dead Sea and Palestine. There was also a 4th Century Church with mosaic flooring where the Baptismal Pool had been. There was one creature that Bettina was convinced was an elephant, although even she conceded that it was a poor likeness....it turned out to be a leopard!!

Down into Madaba passing the Baptism Grocery Store to see another mosaic inside a church. The church was more modern by far and had been built over the top of the mosaic - indeed it had been lost for many years. It was a map of the area reaching from Egypt to Jerusalem and created in 560AD. It once contained more than 2 million pieces but only a third of it remains.

Madaba is a nice little town, which has a compact feel to it. We exchanged some money totally effortlessly and then went and had lunch of toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches and banana milkshake. Then a postcard hunt ensued - but we wanted reasonable postcards. We tracked some down at the stuffed camel emporium.

B and I had a craving for something sweet and so found a pastry shop where after much effort we managed to purchase just 2 triangle shaped filo things. These were covered in warm sugar syrup just before sale. We went back to the bus and ate these, which had a cottage cheesy kind of sweet filling - very nice too.

I slept most of the way to Kerak.

Our hotel is situated right next to the castle and overlooks one of the deep gorges that surround the town. The castle was built over a period of time but was mainly used by the crusaders in the 10th Century. Clearly they had taken stone from other buildings, as there was quite a lot of carving that must have come from Byzantine buildings. After the official tour Khaled was keen to go off as the sun was sinking lower. We went off and had a look in lots of exciting secret passages as I had bought a torch with me. We wandered around for a while being very Famous Fivey. We knew they were going to lock up at about 4.15 and so at about five past we started heading back. As we rounded the corner we could see that the gate was shut and it looked as if the padlock was on. Fortuitously the padlock had been left unlocked but for an instantaneous moment we had visions of breaking out of a Crusader Castle!!

Our room looks over the steep drop down the side of the mountain. At sundown we heard the cannon shot and the muezzin start in the various mosques around town to signify the break fast.

Dinner was at the hotel and was flattened breasts of chicken with chips, soup, mezze and creme caramel afterwards. We went to bed straight after as in the morning we were off to Petra.

Breakfast and then a jaunt into town to try and get some fruit. It was not possible as the fruit shops didn't seem to be open yet. We had bought some biscuits from a small supermarket the night before as we knew that lunch in Petra was going to cost us a small fortune and at the end of the day we are both fairly mean!!

Left at 7.30a.m. for Petra. We drove down the desert highway with a brief bio break at a tourist spot with highly inflated prices and then onto Candles Hotel. We dumped our stuff off and then got a lift down to the entrance to the tourist office. Some people got horses and went down on them others of us walked.

We had driven across a dry barren flat desert landscape and then had gotten to a place where there were hills and canyons. The start of the walk through had been down a sandy track with the start of some tombs either side. As we turned the corner the rock seemed to change and become more rounded and a slightly different colour. It was the start of a gully called the siq, which ran for nearly 1 and a half kms. It had been the processional entrance to Petra and was naturally beautiful. You could see where the water had carved its way through the channel over the aeons. The river had been diverted by the Neboteans so that it had gone around the siq but they still had to get water down to the town and so they had built water channels along the side of the siq. There were beautiful carvings along the siq which were of the various Nebotean gods.

The siq narrowed and broadened and eventually the colour became pinker until suddenly you could see a glimpse of the Treasury through the chasm. The image is one we have all seen many times - if only in the movies- but it is nothing compared with seeing it for yourself. It is so huge any person next to it is dwarfed and awed by the hugeness of the things and to realise it was all carved in one piece out of solid rock is barely comprehensible. I have to admit I did have a little tear in my eye when I saw it first.

We walked on down through the outer siq there were tombs on both sides which were splendid. There was a theatre on the left which ad been built by the Neboteans and added to by the Romans. Further on passing through the colonnaded street and the roman pavement with shops on the side.

There were temples and churches and tombs everywhere. We stopped for lunch and said goodbye to Khaled who was leaving us. We went off to some very superior loos the cleanliness of which would be hard to match even with gallons of available water let alone in the desert.

We set off to the Monastery up about 900 steps. We stopped for a while and had a drink and lunch as we had not taken the opportunity to pay £4 for a sandwich at the bottom! It was a good day for walking not too hot ad a bit of a breeze. The canyons are beautiful and it is worth visiting Petra for these alone. The colours and the formations of the rock are spectacular and the colour changes all the time as the light changes.

Two thirds of the way up and w nearly fell off the cliff face - who should we see but Martin last seen in Malaysia and Singapore. He was doing Egypt and Jordan with Exodus.

The Monastery is a high tomb similar to the Treasury. We then set off on the long hike back to the hotel, which was to be made before sundown at 4.30p.m.

Dinner was in the restaurant at the hotel and we were pleased it was because even though we had had baths the steps and hills were telling on our legs.

We got up fairly early the next day even though it was a free day so that we could have breakfast and then go down to Petra. We got to the Treasury just as sun was breaking on it and apart from Geoff and Vince for some time we were the only people there. As a rather large and unfortunate American commented 'it's bananas'.

We went off to the High Place which was quite a climb and necessitated some scrambling at the end.

A pink clad and pregnant Bedouin woman tried to help us but independent as ever we fended her off. Anyway we had our own guide with us - a little cat that had insisted on climbing most of the way up with us and then also joining us on the way back down again. The High Place was used as a sacrificial place although no one is quite sure what exactly was sacrificed. There is a theory that it was small children which seems eminently sensible but it may well have been goats and so on. Either way there must have been a fair amount of blood as there were channels through which it could run from the place of sacrifice.

We came back down the mountain the same way and went to the superior loos before going up to the Byzantine chapel where there are remarkably well preserved mosaics which were only found about 10 years ago.

On up the hill and over the riverbed to the Royal Tombs where we had lunch and fended off Bedouin necklace sellers.

We felt quite cruel in some ways there is clearly a massive drop in tourism due to September 11th. Petra is usually packed with tourists with a crush in front of the Treasury. We were rather unfortunate if there was another person there. We estimated that they must be down to 100-200 visitors a day as opposed to the 2000 they are used to. It felt a bit as if people had given up. We walked around the more inaccessible tombs for a while brandishing a head torch before we started heading back the hotel.

The visit to Petra is one that will stay with me for the rest of my life. It was truly remarkable and magic and I am only sad that Gordon couldn't share in it with me.

After the slog back up the hill we lounged around for a while before taking a taxi up to Wadi Musa to buy some fruit.

The taxi driver seemed to have a penchant for American County music and it seemed rather bizarre to be in a taxi decorated with Chinese lanterns listening to a song dedicated to the delights of gambling. We bought dates, oranges and bananas and then had a mooch about in various emporia. It was getting close to sundown and outside many shops pancakes were being precisely made on griddles. These are bought in huge quantities, taken home filled with nuts and syrup and consumed at breakfast. They are about the size of drop scones and are cooked on one side and the taken off the griddle and placed on cloths where they are fanned madly with pieces of cardboard by anyone who seems to be passing. We were fascinated and stood watching for a while. We were obviously drooling and were given one each to eat which we had to do surreptitiously behind hands.

Back with County and Western man to Candles to stuff ourselves with vitamin c and fibre before going to a Hotel Complex nearby for a Hamman (Turkish Bath). As we had booked we had the place to ourselves and a woman masseuse called Mariam from Syria. Her 4 children acted as the people who slosh you down with water once you have had a steam and want a cool down. They started of ok but got progressively more bored and therefore more irritating. Mariam gave us all a great rub and scrape ad massage and was a bit fierce with the old goat hair mitt. Nonetheless less my legs really appreciated it after 2 days hiking up and down canyons.

Back to the hotel where we met the others and went for a ubiquitously boring meal at the Red Cave.

It was Vince's birthday and so there was also a cake that Laura had organised. Back up the hill. Tomorrow we head for the desert.

After toast, triangle cheese, cucumber and tomatoes (Explore breakfast par excellence) we set off it 4 wheel drives to Wadi Rum. It was a grey, cloudy day with a few spots of rain as we started off. We stopped to look at the landscape in which Petra is located and you could see why it had remained hidden from view for so long.

On into the desert and gradually the landscape began to change. It looked sandier and there were large rock formations materialising. They set the wheels over to 4x4 and we started chugging across the sand. We stopped a couple of times to look at various excavations of places that had been used by the caravans in Nebotean times right up until a couple of hundred years ago. We also stopped and had tea in a Bedouin tent with a family. It was all rather strange until the children joined us and showed us their English schoolbooks and toy stuffed dinosaur, which was very well loved. The schoolbooks were completely inappropriate. I thought that they were probably American. The children seemed to have been learning about all sorts of in appropriate thins, like birthday cake, polar bears and bathrooms. These people live in a tent in the middle of a desert!!

Wadi Rum was a complete revelation and certainly the unexpected highlight of the trip. The photos will show the enormity and beauty of the place -it's hard to explain. After bumping across the desert for about 3 hours we stopped for lunch. Waiting for us were camels and their guides.

After we had consumed exactly the same menu as we had had for breakfast we were allocated to our particular camels. I had one with a large saddle but it felt very perilous and the camel handler didn't seem very happy. I was really not enjoying the experience at all. We stopped for a breather and I got off with my legs shaking and I was really considering giving up. It was suggested that Freda and I swop camels as she was slightly misuited to hers. As soon as I got on I felt better and more confident and Sultan, the 14-year-old who was the owner of Zrebny, was quite a chatty young man. We had a good time and I really enjoyed the second part.

We stopped again to have a look at some 4000-year-old graffiti showing people on the various caravans where the oases are and where the various routed to take would be. I was enjoying camelling very much by now and had even managed to confidently take a photo with no hands on the saddle and my leg hooked round the saddle.

The sun was starting to get low in the sky as we entered our Bedouin camp. The tent was in the valley and was extremely basic. We each had a mattress and thick sleeping bag. I decided to get mine all set up before it got dark and also piled on a load of clothes feeling that it would get very cold later. We hung about looking at sunsets and enjoying the ambience until it was dark when I piled on even more clothes before going to sit around the fire with the rest of the group.

Dinner was the nicest meal we had had. After which Laura insisted on us all playing charades which we were all reluctant to do. However being (largely) British it seemed rude to question it. The fire was starting to get low and so groups of us went in turn foraging for wood. It was hard work as the sand was tough going. However we were sturdily prepared with torches and by now 2 pairs of trousers. I sat up until about 9 before piling on more clothes, removing boots and getting into bed where I slept surprisingly well.

Breakfast was similar to the usual triangle cheese affair and it was not long after that the 4x4 drivers appeared to take us to Aquaba.

Clearly we were going to arrive far too early as there were many stops of the type that Explore do so well to look at nothing very much and just take a couple of photos. We were very thrilled to note that one stop included being rather close to a concrete works which maintained the theme that started in Malaysia when Paul was attempting to fill 10 minutes one day.

We left the desert and headed for the coast and Aquaba which is a Port City. One could see Israel and Egypt and it was so easy to understand the tension in the region. We live on an island and don't have to concern ourselves too much with imaginary borders what is ours is ours very much (although the Irish should dispute this).

We dumped our stuff and had much needed baths as we were rather pungent after camelling and camping. At about 12 we took a bus down to the Royal Jordanian Dive Club to go snorkelling. It was a 20-minute drive. What a bleak day!!!! The palm trees were bending to the ground and the white horses were well and truly bobbing about. We had an expensive and rather unpleasant sandwich while we discussed our next move.

Rather bravely we decided to start by going down to the jetty to survey the water and to toe test the temperature. Looking into the sea we saw glass fish being blown back and unable to swim against the tide and although we are strong swimmers we decided that this was probably not good snorkelling weather. Infact one of the group that did go in got beaten back by the tide and was unable to reach the coral. The only 2 people that did go in said that the visibility was rather poor.

I sat and shivered in fleece on a sun lounger by the pool, Bettina swam in the pool. On the whole it felt a bit like a day on a beach at home in the middle of summer!

Back at the hotel we headed downtown. We had decided to break out of the expected eating together in a restaurant of Laura's choice which on the whole was a very safe meal choice ad had thought we might go ad get a bit more local colour and flavour.

We started off in the souk buying spices and being offered many cups of various teas. We didn't negotiate as well as we might have done until we got to buying cinnamon when we seemed to acquire an entire tree for a very reasonable amount of money. We wandered about looking at housewares, cookery books and just getting a feel of the town. We had desperately missed this so far on the trip.

We were looking for a particular restaurant recommended in Lonely Planet and had gone well off route. Asking people where we were they took the rather lovely but wholly irritating stance of telling us where they thought we wanted to be rather than where we actually were as they didn't want to upset us. Back to the map and we eventually fell upon our chosen establishment by accident. It was worth the hassle. B had a rice and fish dish that could have fed a small African villa e and I had Kofta, which was yummy. Sitting in this place we were also entertained a fashion show by the proprietor who had just been to purchase a new jacket and was showing it off to the rest of the staff. We indicated that we thought that the shoulders were a little wide but clearly it was an excellent bargain and this was of little consequence.

On the way to the T-shirt emporia we bought elastic ice cream - it must have gelatine or something of that ilk in it - nice but a little peculiar. The T-shirt buying was a typical middle eastern experience involving much overacting and smiling from both parties, great flourishes, use of calculators and small boys sent running to fetch other commodities for 'madam' to see. Not only that but we were assured of the best Egyptian cotton, from Jordan and the rarity of the size and design of the purchased article. As is often the case it is a lot more fun buying these things than actually receiving what appears to be a rather 2nd rate gift!

Early night and an early start (6.30 am) to head back up via the Jordan valley and Dead Sea to Amman. Swimming in the Dead Sea was a most bizarre experience - it made the 'swim' in Salt Lake - of the City - pale into insignificance. Swimming was out of the question as different bits of you kept bobbing up in the way that you wouldn't want them to but with a bit of organisation it was possible to float completely upright without having to make any effort whatsoever. I felt completely weightless - a marvellous thing! The 'resort' we had stopped a6t was fairly Explore typical. It had obviously seem much better days, the showers were terrible, the food basic and it reminded me of the Czechoslovakia when I went there in about 1985. It had clearly once been something and might be again but at this time it wasn't anything very much!!!

We travelled on up to Amman and arrived at an exceptionally early hour at the Hotel Manar. We had much needed showere and washed swimming costumes through which were almost solid from the amount of salt in them. B and I decided to go out and explore and after bravely declaring our allegiance to public transport and having to back down on this due to the impossible nature of working out where the buses even went from we ended up getting a taxi into town. We wandered down by the Souk in and out of little shops and to the market buying fresh dates and various odds and sods. We had a slightly weird experience with a young lad following us and rubbing up against me - but we gave him our evil travelling eye and were able to get rid of him easily enough.

We had not had lunch and had planned to have some in town but time was now ticking on and although we were hungry we decided to wait until sun down and eat when break fast took place. We positioned ourselves a little up from the main Mosque and watched as people went into the Mosque to pray.

We watched the sun go down and then suddenly the atmosphere changed and we saw people at the little stalls which had been frantically busy - and then suddenly empty - start to get busy again and we realised that breakfast had come. We had a falafal sandwich and then headed back to the Hotel to finish packing - in some cases - in others to start...Bettina!!!

The group dinner that night had been organised as an Italian meal. I took the line that I could have an Italian at home should I choose to and even there I wouldn't and so we had a look at what Lonely Planet could offer. Dennis and Barbara decided to join the breakaway faction and so we headed off to a place, which didn't seem to be too far away. Actually it was really close but then there was the problem of finding the entrance. We eventually found our way in and had a heavenly vegetarian Lebanese meal for which we paid no more than £3 each.

On the table next to us there were a group of 4 young people each with a bubbly pipe - 2 of them were women!

An early night as the next morning we left the Hotel at 3am for the airport. All the baggage was checked - as were we and then after a bit of sitting around we were off home. Good flight and wonderful to be met at the other end by Gordon.

Jordan was remarkable - all I expected it to be and more. I had gone to see Petra but there was so much else besides, Jerash, Dead Sea, Wadi Rum. Bettina and I are now deciding where to go next year.