After finding my feet in Jordan we decided to head straight to the ancient Nabetean city of Petra.

We checked into a fairly nice, fairly expensive hotel with a roof top swimming pool and a view over the modern city of Wadi Musa and down to the gates of the ancient city of Petra.

Like Amman and the villages we passed on the long road south, Wadi Musa was built down the slopes of hillsides. All of the identical houses camouflaged into the sandstone coloured surroundings, mostly decrepit buildings but in my opinion more beautiful than many at home in Sydney… I guess I just prefer natural building materials with a rustic feel. Mosques, universities and government buildings are something else altogether. Of course they are the same colour as the earth and all of the villages, but they are grand buildings, resembling palaces. Interesting geometrical shapes crowned with high domes and a decorative attention to detail that lacks in modern Western buildings. These majestic structures look built to last and built to inspire.

We spent the afternoon on the rooftop by the pool until a man claiming to be the manager of the hotel approached us. He said he wanted to take us somewhere, but he wouldn’t say where: “it is a surprise, if I tell you it will spoilt it. But I promise you, you will like it”.

I think Molly was a little apprehensive, but true to my form I saw no problem getting into a car with a strange man at night taking us off to God-knows-where.

We agreed to meet him in the lobby of the hotel just before sunset.

At sunset we loaded into the car and our host, Abdullah, drove us through the town and along a highway that passed hills and valleys that sheltered flickers of glimmering orange lights in the shadows of dusk… “Bedouin camps. In the caves in the hills” he told us.

As the car slowed down near our destination Abdullah told us to close our eyes.

When we opened them we were at the gates of Little Petra.

We walked through the sandstone arched entrance and looked around in the dark at some Roman style pillars and an open amphitheatre type construction. There was nobody else there except for two caretakers who lived there full time. Again we were asked to close our eyes and when it was time to open them we were surrounded by small yellow lights. Circling us were massive rock formations harbouring little caverns and natural tunnels that made the whole structure look like beehives or swiss cheese. In the entrance to these small caves were little yellow lights. Hundreds of them. It was like curtains of fairy lights or like Christmas time in the movies.

We sat on cushions laid out on a little wooden platform on the edge of the amphitheatre. One of the caretakers started up a fire in the pit and brought us over some sweet tea. Molly, Abdullah and I sat there in the quiet night, surrounded by little yellow lights and discussed the politics of Jordan, Syria and the rest of the region.

With America threatening to strike Jordan’s neighbour Syria, it is a topic Molly and I were dying to talk to locals about: “What will Jordan do with even more refugees? Will protests start up here? Will Iran get involved? Will Israel? What do the locals think: should the USA strike Syria? What would Iraq be like today if the US hadn’t invaded? What was Syria like before the civil war?”

We talked about cultural politics in Jordan. Abdullah told us how he often goes to Amman for one, two or even three nights to gamble, drink and God knows what else. He has to do it in Amman to hide from the condemning eyes of his community. “I mind my business they should mind theirs… even my wife”

As I had been during the days leading up to my departure we were glued to the TV in the hotel room, Aljazeera talked about the impending strike constantly.

Politics at home were just as bad… Tony Abbott was elected as Australia’s Liberal Prime Minister and I lay in bed that night baffled… what was happening to the world? There seems to be a conservative movement happening across the globe right now... how can this be?