Jordan Shopping

Some popular souvenirs are the decorated sand bottles, sometimes with the most intricate designs done in the sand, with the aid of a knitting needle and a funnel! Be careful, often dyed sand is used rather than the natural sand. These coloured designs will fade fairly soon and very quickly indeed if exposed to the sun. It is better if possible to buy the bottles in Petra, where the sand used is almost always the natural sand of the rocks. These bottles and the sand in them are often referred to (by the salesmen!) as "Petra's treasure".

Prices of these bottles vary enormously according to the design and the size of the bottles. Some of the work done is quite extraordinary. Very often a stallholder will have a large bottle on display with samples of all the possible designs worked in the sand. He doesn't really want to sell this bottle, it is a "showpiece".

You can gauge the quality of the bottles on sale by the number of dishes of coloured sand nearby: a good worker might have ten or twelve different colours available.

It is strictly not allowed to chip away parts of the rocks, the stones that one often sees on sale as souvenirs are usually picked up in one of the stream beds, they get washed down after any rain. But the sand bottle makers usually have their own sources away from Petra, where they can collect larger stones of one colour to crush down and use. This crushing is hard work, especially as the finer designs are made with sand that is crushed until it can go through a very fine sieve, and resembles powder. When the design is finished, the sand is compacted until it becomes very solid, and if done properly will not move if shaken. Eventually this turns into rock again, with the design complete. Often a stallholder will have a broken bottle on show, with the design exposed to air.

A large bottle incidentally, can be turned into an attractive and original table lamp. The only problem is that it's heavy to carry home.

But the starting price for simple sand bottles, with or without a camel done in the sand, is around 2 or even 1JD. You can get a name written in the sand for 1JD extra. If you want something really fine, an intricate design or a large bottle, then the price can run up to 10 or 20JD or often more, sometimes much more.

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