Journal · Destinations
The detour that makes Jordan
Jordan is a four-hour flight from Delhi and one of the most diverse short-haul destinations available to Indian travellers: the ancient city of Petra, the lowest point on earth, the Red Sea coast, and a desert landscape that Mars rovers have been photographed to resemble. It is also a country where the visa is simple, the English is ubiquitous in tourism contexts, the food is genuinely good, and the seven-night itinerary requires no compromise.
Petra
Petra is the reason people come to Jordan and it lives up to the expectation in a way that is rare for destinations of this profile. The rose-red sandstone city, carved into the rock by the Nabataeans between the 4th century BC and the 1st century AD, is entered through a kilometre-long canyon — the Siq — that opens abruptly onto the Treasury. The Treasury is the photograph. It is also the first of approximately 800 monuments in the archaeological site, most of which the photograph-takers never reach because the Treasury stops them.
The full site requires two days minimum. The first day follows the main trail to the Monastery (a 45-minute climb that most Petra visitors skip and shouldn’t). The second day covers the Royal Tombs, the Colonnaded Street, the Great Temple, and the areas above and north of the main circuit. One day in Petra is a very expensive visit to one photograph. Two days is an archaeological experience.
Wadi Rum
The red-sand desert three hours south of Petra is the addition that converts a good Jordan trip into a great one. The landscape — formed by millennia of erosion cutting through the Hisma desert sandstone and granite — is the kind of overwhelming that requires a quiet moment to process: vast valley floors between dramatic red cliffs, the colour of Mars, absolute silence except for wind. The camps here are some of the best glamping operations in the world — not a marketing claim but a structural reality: the desert environment makes the basic unit of accommodation a tent, and the people who do it well have produced tented suites with wood stoves and proper beds and kitchens that cook the Bedouin lamb slowly enough.
“The full Petra site requires two days. One day is a very expensive visit to one photograph.”
Dead Sea and Aqaba
The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, at 430 metres below sea level, and floating in it — the salinity is so high that you cannot sink — is the experience that people describe as the strangest and most unexpected of the trip. One night at a Dead Sea resort is the right allocation; more is diminishing. Aqaba, on the Red Sea, is for divers: the coral system in the Gulf of Aqaba is in better condition than most of the Red Sea, and a day trip or overnight from Petra adds the underwater dimension to a trip that has otherwise been exclusively about the landscape and the archaeology.
Petra is why you go to Jordan. Wadi Rum is why you come back. Give the desert two nights at the right camp, and the trip stops being an itinerary and becomes a place you carry around long afterwards.