
Beyond Petra - Thevet
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/360-1911/letter-from/8076-jordan-petra-hinterland
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acjohnson55
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.

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OscarDC
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

~~~
simiones
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
:)

~~~
notahacker
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.

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noneeeed
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.

