Getting Around: Petra

Petra - UNESCO world heritage site, and voted one of the new seven wonders of the world on 7 July 2007.

We arrived in the little Jordanian town late at night and checked into a quiant little hotel which still kept dinner all laid out, warmed and ready for us despite the late hour (around 10pm). Our late arrival was due to a marathon crossing of the Red Sea from Egypt which, on hindsight, was nothing compared to the awesome crossing of the same Red Sea by the Israelites led by Moses a few thousand years ago. Moses didn't have the friendly Jordanians to meet and welcome them on the other side. He had the Egyptian army pursuing him.

Our hotel in Petra.My breakfast. No, wait a minute, what's the vegetable doing there?? Can't be my breakfast!
At the Petra Visitors Centre and a royal welcome awaited us.
Shopping in the visitors centre before the tour.
Anyway, after a good night's rest, we were up and ready to explore Petra the amazing rock city. In the tour bus, we were told of the various options we could make use of to get around.

First, the old-fashioned way, on the two legs God has given us. However, there were a handful of us who had perhaps decided that the legs had been very much overused the day before, climbing up and down Mount Sinai, and we were ready to consider other less tiring options.

The tour guide said we could take a buggy from the entrance of Petra down the Sig to the Treasury, about one km. Buggy... hmm, we immediately thought of the buggies or golf carts which had taken us and our luggage to our individual chalet at the hotel the night before.

Ackkk, wrong choice of words, Mr Tour Guide. The buggy turned out to be a horse-drawn carriage. And it wasn't very comfortable. My horse (yes, yes, YES, I was one of those whose legs were overused the previous day) was sort of limping, poor thing.

A horse-drawn carriage aka buggy.View from my horse-drawn carriage.Another way to get around was on horses, and we saw some friendly mounted policemen who patrolled Petra. Er... nope. Singaporeans do not ride horses very often.The friendly Jordanian policemen on their horses.
There were camels as well. Of course. However, we already had our fill of camels the day before, going up Mount Sinai. One ride on a camel for one hour was enough to satisfy the average Singaporean for the entire lifetime (quite unlike shopping, you know, we never seem to get enough of shopping malls). I myself already had been unfortunate enough to endure two rides on two camels - in Inner Mongolia about two years ago, and then up Mount Sinai this time. I do not need a third camel.

I think you need to see a dentist.Eh, why so tired, huh? Or maybe you're dead. Ahhh, dead camel!!!And then there were donkeys. Not as difficult to manage as horses, we thought, and the tour guide said we should all take a donkey ride back to the Treasury towards the end of the tour.

Some of us looked pretty cool on our donkeys!The handlers... some of them were small boys, were all eager to grab us for their donkeys, and the most difficult thing was to get up on one, and to get down again at the end of the ride. In between, it wasn't really that bad, except for our poor uncle. First, he overtook me on the right (Eh, doesn't your donkey know any traffic rules, Uncle R?), and then about ten seconds later, I saw him flying into the air, right before my very eyes. Wahhhhhhh, rogue donkey!

You can see our dear uncle on his crazy donkey here... one moment he was on the left of the picture below...
And the next moment barely two seconds later, his donkey had taken off on its own, without its handler! Hah, look at that! While everybody else's donkeys were all very 'kwai', standing still and waiting patiently for instructions, his animal already exhibited a mind of its own right from the beginning!
My biggest regret to this day - I was clinging so tightly to my donkey that I didn't have my camera ready to snap away at Uncle R hanging upside down after his terrific cartwheel. And I was the closest, and saw the whole performance. I thanked God mine wasn't a copycat, because it simply plodded steadily on and on, ignoring the tumble in front of it and Uncle R with his legs in the air.

Would I go to Petra again, if I ever had the chance? Yes, I'd like that, but no more horse-drawn carriages falsely described as buggies, donkeys, horses, camels or any four-legged critters... the two legs God had given us are still without doubt the best way to get around.