The middle east

We are now safely in Madaba Jordan. We flew from Bangkok yesterday. We savored our last days in Thailand enjoying every Thai meal and beer Chang. We left Thailand on the first day of the Thai new year. It is celebrated over a 4 day period and is known as the water festival. It basically is a large countrywide water fight with water balloons, water guns,buckets of water, hoses, etc. I definately got wet a couple times but in the 92 degree Bangkok heat it felt great. There is also the street side karaoke that sprouts up all over the place. Some of the Thai singers were quite good and others were very very bad. But look whos talking, I cant hold a tune in English or Thai.

Our flight to Jordan was uneventful. We had a layover in a small place called Oman, in the country of Qatar. Qatar is this little finger of land that sticks out into the persian gulf. From the air it is quite beautiful looking. The closer to land we realized that there is nothing but sand in the entire country. They seemed like they are doing pretty well financially thought. Aparently they are the #1 exporter in the world of Natural Gas. On our takeoff from the airport we flew through a sandstorm. It sounded like people were throwing BB's against the plane. Probably not very good on the old jet engines.

Today we took a trip to Mt. Nebo. It is the final resting place for Moses. Apparently he lived on the top of Mt. Nebo because it has a view accross the Jordan plains over the dead sea and onto Jarusalem. He was able to see the entire Israelite promised land from the top of the mountain. It was very interesting seeing the remains of the various temples/ churches that were erected in Moses' honor and thinking of all the history that took place on the lands we were gazing on.

We also went down to the dead sea and floated in the incredibaly salty water. Some people rub the black mud from the bottom of the sea on their bodies. There were a few people completely covered with black tarlike mud. We decided this was a novelty we could skip.

Tomorrow we travle down the "kings highway" stopping at the various remains of centuries old churches, temples, and castles. We will then spend the next 3 days hiking around Petra.