Imagine the Royal Easter Show. There are rides, food stalls and families with young children in attendance. Now add beer. Lots and lots of beer. And now you have Oktoberfest.

Along with the food stalls and rides, each of the major breweries has a tent at Oktoberfest. In these tents you can hang out, drink steins of beer and eat ginormous pretzels and hot BBQ chooks. In the tent you must find a table and seat, then you can flag down a friendly barmaid and she'll keep you supplied with food and drinks for the duration of your stay (a generous tip on your first round will ensure that she remains attentive.) Some of the barmaids are impressively strong. We saw some barmaids carrying five or six 1-litre steins. I struggled lifting just one of those steins.


Drinking beer is the number one past time at Oktoberfest. This means that if you do want to get a seat in a beer tent you pretty much have to turn up when the tent opens at 10am. You then spend the whole day in that tent because if you leave you lose your seat. You won't be able to get a seat in another tent as they stop letting people in when they reach capacity.

The beer drinking starts at 10am (what else are you going to do when you're in the beer tent? Listen to the oompah band?) and you drink 1-litre steins. I wasn't a beer drinker before my visit to Oktoberfest and even though I was only drinking Radlers (the German name for a Shandy - beer and lemonade) by the end of our two days at Oktoberfest I'd drunk enough beer to become accustomed to the taste.

Apparently Oktoberfest made me into a better person. At the end of our time at Oktoberfest Andrew said to me "you know hunni, I didn't think it was possible to love you more but I do now that you're a beer drinker."

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

Our visit to Oktoberfest was part of our Beerfest trip to Germany in 2006 (eek! almost four years ago). We spent a week or so in Germany with Tash and Nat. This is the first entry from that trip.

Our guide Okla led us up a steep pathway to the top of a cliff. Sitting on the edge, with our feet dangling over the rocks, we had a great view of the Rose City. From the top we could see the amphitheatre, tourists wandering around and Bedouin boys riding donkeys back and forth. It was a great way to see Petra.




More photos (slideshow) of Petra on Flickr.

Our visit to Petra was part of our Road to Jordan tour. We did a 17-day tour with On The Go to Egypt and Jordan and we had a lot of fun. Other entries from this trip include: Petra - The Rose City, Petra - The Siq and the Treasury, Petra - Beginning, Temple of Hatshepsut, More Egyptian Temples (Luxor and Karnak), The Tringles, Wadi Rum, Kom Ombo and Edfu, Feluccan Fun, Abu Simbel and The Dead Sea.

Petra is known as The Rose City because of the colour of the stone from which the tombs are carved. One tomb that we visited had a beautiful range of earthy colours and the sedimentary nature of sandstone was evident. Horizontal lines of tan, brown, yellow, rose and white made for a decorative final resting place.

The people who built the tombs, the Nabataens, also used the sandstone colours as makeup. Our guide did an impromptu makeover on Chris. I'm not sure that yellow is his colour.


More photos (slideshow) of Petra on Flickr.

Our visit to Petra was part of our Road to Jordan tour. We did a 17-day tour with On The Go to Egypt and Jordan and we had a lot of fun. Other entries from this trip include: Petra - The Siq and the Treasury, Petra - Beginning, Temple of Hatshepsut, More Egyptian Temples (Luxor and Karnak), The Tringles, Wadi Rum, Kom Ombo and Edfu, Feluccan Fun, Abu Simbel and The Dead Sea.

Petra was used as the location of the Grail Temple in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In the movie, Indy has to travel through the canyon of the crescent shaped moon to get to the temple. And that's exactly what you have to do to get to Petra - travel through a canyon. (I don't think the canyon is actually crescent shaped but it is a canyon. Well technically it's a gorge. Whatever! It will do.)

The gorge is called al-Siq, which means the shaft in Arabic. It's quite narrow - only 3m wide in some places - and dark - the walls of the gorge tower above you and block most of the sunlight.

After walking for a couple of kilometres through the Siq, you round one last bend and can see that up ahead the light changes. It changes from shade to golden sunshine. At the end of the gorge there is just a tiny glimpse of the lost city of Petra.

You stumble out into the light and are greeted by an amazing sight, the Treasury (Al Khazneh), an impressive monument carved out of the cliff face (it's actually a tomb, like all the buildings carved into the rock at Petra). Emerging from the Siq you can imagine what it would be like to be an explorer stumbling upon a hidden city (well, you can if you ignore all the people who are stopping at the end of the gorge to have their photo taken, and the guys asking you if you want a camel ride.)

Petra is one of the new seven wonders of the world. You can definitely see why.

More photos (slideshow) of Petra on Flickr.

Our visit to Petra was part of our Road to Jordan tour. We did a 17-day tour with On The Go to Egypt and Jordan and we had a lot of fun. Other entries from this trip include: Petra - Beginning, Temple of Hatshepsut, More Egyptian Temples (Luxor and Karnak), The Tringles, Wadi Rum, Kom Ombo and Edfu, Feluccan Fun, Abu Simbel and The Dead Sea.

The Indiana Jones obsession continues. Is it wrong to admit that the main reason I wanted to visit Petra was because it features in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?

It all started when I was working at Kodak developing photos. One day, I was watching photos being printed by the machine when I noticed that somebody had taken a photo of the "Grail Temple" from Indiana Jones. I was surprised. I thought it was just a set. I hadn't realised that it was a real place. I went home and did some research and discovered that it was Petra. (I also printed a copy of the photo for myself and took it home for inspiration. Yes, I am a bad Kodak employee.) From that day on, I knew that I wanted to visit there. Yes, I am lame. When we finally organised our trip to Egypt, I knew that I wanted to include Jordan and Petra on our itinerary.

When I write about our visits to places that I've always wanted to go, I always struggle to get started. It's like there is too much to write about. Or I don't feel confident putting how I feel into words. Whenever I feel that way I always break the task that seems impossible into smaller, more manageable chunks. So that's what I'm going to do with Petra. Rather than try to fit it all in one note, I'm going to space it out over a few notes. I'll see how I go.

More photos (slideshow) of Petra on Flickr.

Our visit to Petra was part of our Road to Jordan tour. We did a 17-day tour with On The Go to Egypt and Jordan and we had a lot of fun. Other entries from this trip include: Temple of Hatshepsut, More Egyptian Temples (Luxor and Karnak), The Tringles, Wadi Rum, Kom Ombo and Edfu, Feluccan Fun, Abu Simbel and The Dead Sea.