Petra

We were in Dahab for over a week. We really wanted to make the most of our time there and, as we don't know if we'll get another opportunity, decided to visit Petra in Jordan. It's a bit crazy - a day trip to an ancient city in another country - but it's a really common thing to do from Dahab and organised tours left almost every day. Four of us went as a group of friends which meant we got a small discount on the booking, but it still cost over $200 each (1150LE). It's a bit pricey for a day trip, but as the boat costs $85 return, and entry to Petra itself is over $30 it's not actually that bad.  As we suspected we were merged with other people who had booked to go, but in the end our group was still only a couple of dozen people which made it easy to get around.

We were picked up from Dahab at 5am and driven to Taba in a people carrier. At Taba we went through the rigmarole of Egyptian immigration to leave the country, and then boarded a rather nice looking yacht to the port of Aqaba. Well, strictly it wasn't to the port of Aqaba - it was to a very plush marina just outside Aqaba. Jordanian immigration even came to us in order to stamp us in and out.

From here we met our guide and boarded a coach that wound its way up to Petra via Wadi Rum. The day included about 3 hours in Petra, then lunch at a hotel (as with most of these deals drinks weren't included and they cost a fortune - £3 for a bottle of water!) before being driven back to the marina.

Re-entering Egypt was a bit of a hassle - a massive queue through security, and then we all had our temperatures measured with an ear thermometer as they're still panicking about swine flu.  The resident visas for Alice and I hadn't been processed before we went away, so we needed to get another tourist visa in order to enter the country.  The man at immigration was helpful, but a bit obtuse.  From the outset we said we'd need to buy new visas as we needed to get to Cairo, but he didn't really listen.  He opened our passports and started panicking that our visas weren't valid.  He then calmed down and said he could give us a stamp to let us into the country.  However, this was a Sinai-only stamp, so Alice again said that we wanted to buy a new visa so we could get to Cairo.  He started panicking again saying that the stamp would not let us into Cairo, and that we would have to buy a visa if we wanted to do that.  A bit frustrated, as we'd known this since the outset, we paid for our visa and everything was hunky dory.  Collected by people carrier again, we were back in Dahab around 10.30 that night and with a new Duty Free allowance courtesy of our new visa.  Yay!