Golden Tulip Hotel Aqaba

... proceed through body temperature scanning (Jordan is on high alert for potential H1N1), luggage and carry-on security scanning, and finally onto our bus for transfer to the hotel. This process takes over an hour.<br><br>We arrive at our hotel, called My Hotel (formerly the Jordan Suites Hotel) at 8 PM. The hotel is located right next to a liquor store and most of our group excitedly makes a beeline to make some purchases. Talk about desperate. We buy some ...

Destination 385<br><br>km192'112<br><br>After one week vacation at Dahab Claudio and me leave to experience the last chapter of our egyptian "joy"ride: ThePassport and Customs clearance!<br>Arrived at 11:00 at Nuweiba, the port of departure to travel by ferry to Jordan (as traveler are not supposed to travel in Israel if a entry to Syria is required / demanded), we got the tickets and startet the customs procedure. It took a full 2,5 ...

... had a run in with some bats in the castle while exploring. They also had hte tree inthe middle of the courtyard which I though was quite strange.......it was a Gum Tree, what the? After that we meandered back through the midday sun and then went to internet cafe to catch up on everything and have a chat with Philo and Mego. Later that afternoon we all checked out of the hotel and then it was on to Wadi Rum, talk to you in a bit!<br>

... stark desert--in fact, think of the desert scenes from Lawrence of Arabia, as much of that film was shot in the Wadi Rum), and then to "camp" with the Bedouins that night. Our border crossing assistant from the travel agency bought us each a 2-liter bottle of water. Then our driver stopped at a truck stop and bought us each another 2-liter bottle of water. I was beginning to get the picture. Believe it or not, but I think I ended up buying two more 2 ...

... to miss my chance to sandboard). We stopped for tea at one point, then lunch later. Each time our guide picked up a few twigs and started a fire that quickly took (you can imagine how dry the wood was) and put the blackened tea pot on for tea. By the end of the day we were very pleased with our camel riding skills. With some encouragement "yella, yella!" my camel would break into a trot that would keep pace with the guide. Duncan and Maddie's camels were ...

... The smoke really bothers me. Had chicken with rice and yogurt for dinner. This has been an authentic Bedouin experience, because it's only us at the camp and one of the Bedouins, Salah, is the boyfriend of a close friend of Diana's. The Bedouin tradition seems to be dying in Jordan. Most of them no longer live in camps, bur rather in villages. The camps are mostly used for touristic purposes ...

Aug 30 Departing Petra, Mohammad and I headed south on the Kings Highway with ultimate destination being the Wadi Rum desert. I had heard numerous stories about sleeping under the stars of the Wadi Rum, 4x4 trucking across the sands and possibly camel trekking through the vast desert terrain. With temperatures soaring to about 100 degrees, and a driver who didnt ...

... english. I sat to take a seat in the far corner and the feeling of all those pairs of eyes on me was just terrible. I literally closed my eyes and realized that this was crazy and that this was hell. If I managed to make it to Jordan, I seriously considered throwing in the towel. This was insane.. I had no one to turn to, I was alone in every sense, there was not ONE tourist in sight (the joys of low season)... and I didn't think I was even going to ...

... for hotels and transportation in Jordan and their help has been very much appreciated. Tomorrow we plan to make a visit to Wadi Rum, about an hour's drive from Aqaba, where T.E Lawrence ("of Arabia") helped lead the Bedouin rebellion against the Ottoman Turks during WWI. If all goes as planned, we will visit this beautiful desert region in 4WD and then spend the night in Bedouin tents before coming back to Aqaba for some snorkeling in the Red Sea.

... people is likely to be that they are, almost without exception, decent, honest, respectful and friendly.'<br><br> Super. Awesome. **ck yeah! All that loveliness aside, the fact that this isn't, thank Allah, Egypt means that it has already done enough to make us fans for life, whatever may happen from here on out. In fact, we might actually have been willing, right here &amp; right now, to publicly state our undying love for the place if it hadn't been for the ...