Travel broadens the mind and enriches the soul. Great poets have written with fervour about places they have visited, or when abroad written passionately about home. In the same tradition I would like to share my visit to Petra with you. We, my husband Colin and I, were going to spend Christmas, 1974, in Beirut, not such an unusual destination as we were living in Jeddah at the time and the Lebanon was the nearest country where we could find civilisation, as we knew it.
We had been deprived of bacon and beer for quite long enough and were going to drive; or rather Colin was, women not being allowed to in Saudi Arabia. We headed north from Jeddah towards Medina taking care to keep to the Christian bypass because as Khawajas or non-believers to the Saudis, we were not allowed to enter the holy city. Signs along the road had warned us of the severe penalties for getting too close to Medina; death is one that sticks in my mind. If there was ever a need for accurate map and compass reading this was it! My mind went back to my early attempts at navigation when I had sent us heading back into the centre of Yugoslavia instead of towards the Austrian border I had never seen Colin get angry and he did well to control it on this occasion by walking round and round the car in disbelief, we only needed to make an error of two miles here to be in deep water unlike the sixty mile detour in Yugoslavia!
After carefully avoiding Medina our first stop would be Tabuk where we planned to stay overnight. We were travelling in a new Honda Civic which we had just bought but its size was no match for the heavy lorries that hurtled down the middle of the road, which was quite narrow in parts and we were nearly driven off the road on a couple of occasions. We arrived at our destination in the evening and looked for somewhere to stay. We found a building with a hotel sign; Colin went in to see if they had a room. We knew from friends' experiences that if we were shown a room with two or more beds we had to make it clear we wanted to pay for all of the beds to ensure we had the room to ourselves. If we did not we would run the risk of being disturbed in the middle of the night by other travellers seeking respite, on reflection not dissimilar to a Youth Hostel.
Colin returned with the news that there was "room at the inn" (I had been pointing out a bright star on the way), we went inside, there were four beds in the room and they all looked dishevelled. Just as Colin was going to commit us to this dark dingy cell for the night, I don't know why but I glanced upwards, the ceiling seemed speckled. I wasn't wearing my glasses so I squinted and the speckles came into focus, flies, and dozens of them parked up for the night. I immediately thought of what it would be like in the morning with the flies performing aerobatics then zooming in to land on our recumbent bodies. It was the only time I said emphatically: "I can't stay here" and I have stayed, under duress, in some unsavoury places. Colin reluctantly agreed to drive on to the Jordanian border where I was convinced there would be somewhere better to stay. We arrived there about midnight, having avoided the hazards of the night, lorries hurtling down the middle of the road without lights, herds of camels, the usual thing.
When we reached the border it was deserted, on either side of the road there were small government buildings but there was no one to be seen. We didn't want to risk driving through without first obtaining permission; it was important to follow the procedures to the letter or be prepared to suffer the consequences as we were to find out much later. We found a sleeping guard in one of the buildings, he stamped our papers and we drove into Jordan. By now Colin, having driven all day, was extremely tired and there was nowhere to stay at the border the only option was to sleep in the car.
When we found a suitable lay-by, we reclined the seats and settled down for the night. Colin had no trouble he could sleep standing up if necessary. I, on the other hand, was of a more nervous disposition, it was the middle of the night and we were in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't sleep, I thought I saw shapes and heard noises. I woke Colin and told him I had seen something, he said I was imagining it, I probably was. He slept on, I did not. I woke him again and this time persuaded him we should drive on.
We proceeded on our journey, it was uneventful except for more trucks without lights juxtaposed with the ones adorned with fairy lights and looking like Christmas trees, we saw no wise men, shepherds or angels although it was Christmas. In a couple of hours it would be morning. It was shortly after dawn that we saw a sign to Petra, hadn't we heard of this place? Were there some ruins or something? We decided to take a look. We drove into yet another small dusty town, littered with small box shaped buildings in no particular order and because of the time; there was nobody to be seen. We pulled off the road into what appeared to be a car park and turned off the engine.
“What shall we do?” asked Colin to which I replied “I don’t know, I can’t see anything can you?” “No” he replied.
We searched through our maps to see if we could find any information about this place we thought that we had heard of. We couldn't find anything and we were too tired to get out of the car to have a look around. We set off again and drove through the town and we still couldn't see anything of interest so we continued on our way. It was when we reached Amman (not to be confused with Maan as we nearly did) and collected a batch of leaflets that we found out what it was we had missed, Petra "a rose red city half as old as time" later to be brought to everyone's attention in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."
We had been deprived of bacon and beer for quite long enough and were going to drive; or rather Colin was, women not being allowed to in Saudi Arabia. We headed north from Jeddah towards Medina taking care to keep to the Christian bypass because as Khawajas or non-believers to the Saudis, we were not allowed to enter the holy city. Signs along the road had warned us of the severe penalties for getting too close to Medina; death is one that sticks in my mind. If there was ever a need for accurate map and compass reading this was it! My mind went back to my early attempts at navigation when I had sent us heading back into the centre of Yugoslavia instead of towards the Austrian border I had never seen Colin get angry and he did well to control it on this occasion by walking round and round the car in disbelief, we only needed to make an error of two miles here to be in deep water unlike the sixty mile detour in Yugoslavia!
After carefully avoiding Medina our first stop would be Tabuk where we planned to stay overnight. We were travelling in a new Honda Civic which we had just bought but its size was no match for the heavy lorries that hurtled down the middle of the road, which was quite narrow in parts and we were nearly driven off the road on a couple of occasions. We arrived at our destination in the evening and looked for somewhere to stay. We found a building with a hotel sign; Colin went in to see if they had a room. We knew from friends' experiences that if we were shown a room with two or more beds we had to make it clear we wanted to pay for all of the beds to ensure we had the room to ourselves. If we did not we would run the risk of being disturbed in the middle of the night by other travellers seeking respite, on reflection not dissimilar to a Youth Hostel.
Colin returned with the news that there was "room at the inn" (I had been pointing out a bright star on the way), we went inside, there were four beds in the room and they all looked dishevelled. Just as Colin was going to commit us to this dark dingy cell for the night, I don't know why but I glanced upwards, the ceiling seemed speckled. I wasn't wearing my glasses so I squinted and the speckles came into focus, flies, and dozens of them parked up for the night. I immediately thought of what it would be like in the morning with the flies performing aerobatics then zooming in to land on our recumbent bodies. It was the only time I said emphatically: "I can't stay here" and I have stayed, under duress, in some unsavoury places. Colin reluctantly agreed to drive on to the Jordanian border where I was convinced there would be somewhere better to stay. We arrived there about midnight, having avoided the hazards of the night, lorries hurtling down the middle of the road without lights, herds of camels, the usual thing.
When we reached the border it was deserted, on either side of the road there were small government buildings but there was no one to be seen. We didn't want to risk driving through without first obtaining permission; it was important to follow the procedures to the letter or be prepared to suffer the consequences as we were to find out much later. We found a sleeping guard in one of the buildings, he stamped our papers and we drove into Jordan. By now Colin, having driven all day, was extremely tired and there was nowhere to stay at the border the only option was to sleep in the car.
When we found a suitable lay-by, we reclined the seats and settled down for the night. Colin had no trouble he could sleep standing up if necessary. I, on the other hand, was of a more nervous disposition, it was the middle of the night and we were in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't sleep, I thought I saw shapes and heard noises. I woke Colin and told him I had seen something, he said I was imagining it, I probably was. He slept on, I did not. I woke him again and this time persuaded him we should drive on.
We proceeded on our journey, it was uneventful except for more trucks without lights juxtaposed with the ones adorned with fairy lights and looking like Christmas trees, we saw no wise men, shepherds or angels although it was Christmas. In a couple of hours it would be morning. It was shortly after dawn that we saw a sign to Petra, hadn't we heard of this place? Were there some ruins or something? We decided to take a look. We drove into yet another small dusty town, littered with small box shaped buildings in no particular order and because of the time; there was nobody to be seen. We pulled off the road into what appeared to be a car park and turned off the engine.
“What shall we do?” asked Colin to which I replied “I don’t know, I can’t see anything can you?” “No” he replied.
We searched through our maps to see if we could find any information about this place we thought that we had heard of. We couldn't find anything and we were too tired to get out of the car to have a look around. We set off again and drove through the town and we still couldn't see anything of interest so we continued on our way. It was when we reached Amman (not to be confused with Maan as we nearly did) and collected a batch of leaflets that we found out what it was we had missed, Petra "a rose red city half as old as time" later to be brought to everyone's attention in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."
We had a good time in Beirut and skied at Cedars, well, to be truthful Colin did and I didn't because I was expecting my first son and thought it would be rather foolhardy in my condition. We didn't visit Petra on our return journey, we didn’t have time, which is ironic considering what did happen to us on that journey, but that is another story.
So you see Petra remains the most beautiful place I have never seen, although if asked if I have been there I just say yes and move swiftly on.
