Our man in Amman

The journey to Amman takes 5 hours crammed into a Toyota truck with Lucy, Pip, and Alex, three travellers also staying at the Petra Gate. Approaching the city centre the sandstone coloured housing blocks and hilly terrain gives way to bright and busy streets. The Palace Hotel is located in the heart of a shopping district, surrounded by small clothing stores, perfumes and souvenirs, and fruit juice vendors. Recommended in the guidebooks this place is cheap and very relaxed with really smiley staff.

In the evening we eat out at the 'Cairo Restaurant'. I try chicken freekeh, slow roasted chicken served with a type of bulgar wheat, topped with almonds and a yogurt sauce, a new favourite! Afterwards we look for somewhere to get a drink. Nearby to the hotel is the 'eco-tourism cafe', though nothing about it indicates why it should be called as such. It's a quite a male-oriented place with guys sat around tables playing cards, chess or backgammon and smoking apple sheesha in hookahs, the only women there it seems are Lucy and Pip. We sit out on the balcony and watch shoppers bustling about. There's a flash and loud thunderclap as it starts to rain heavily.

Go up Moses

I'm sharing a room with Gareth, by coincidence a Supported Housing Manager from Cheltenham UK. Honestly, you go to another continent and still find yourself talking about homelessness strategies! (though I'm dubious about his claim to a no evictions record and sure enough it involves "relocating" some clients). We book a day-trip with the hotel to visit the Dead Sea and a couple of other places.

Mount Nebos is where an ageing Moses is meant to have climbed towards the end of his life so he could see Jerusalem and the 'promised land' before dying. There's no burial site been discovered but there is a Basilica and small museum of mosaics and artifacts, as well as some overgrowing gardens with small lizards basking in the blazing sun and darting for cover as people walk past.

Our driver asks if we want to do a 70km round trip to visit the supposed site of the baptism involving John and Jesus. It's a vote and I'm in the 'meh' category, not least as our driver didn't really sell it by saying there's nothing there but a sign. So instead we decide to go straight to the Dead Sea.

To enter the 'Amman Tourist Beach' costs 5 dinar. Once past the gate its about 100 yards down steps and skipping across burning sands to reach the shore. The first few steps are tentative into the water, it feels kind of oily, when it reaches my waist line I lean back and feel my entire body-mass shift to the surface, so this is what weightlessness might feel like. Despite the high mineral content the water is still very transluscent and you can see the grey-white ridges of crusted salt on the bottom.

Two things are important to know about the Dead Sea (from my experience). First, the warnings are true that if you get any water in your eyes your temporarily blinded and need to go ashore to wash out the salt and stop the stinging. Second, just as when repairing a bicycle tyre you can pump it up and rotate in a bucket of water so hissing bubbles will reveal where there's a tiny puncture not visible to the naked eye; well, in the Dead Sea, if you have any cuts or scrapes, even ones you're not aware of, you'll soon know about it!