Follow the sounds of the flute along a candlelit path for a magnificent view of Petra’s awe-inspiring ruins says STUART JAMES

SITTING in an ancient city under the stars of the Arabian Desert isn’t the first place you’d expect to hear a bagpipe.

The exotic noises being squeezed from an inflated bladder by a Bedouin tribesman echoed around the magnificent ruins of the Lost City of Petra.

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We were tucking into a starlit feast surrounded by shadowy tombs and temples carved from the desert sandstone by the mysterious Nabateans over 2,000 years ago.

Petra is simply jaw-dropping. Think the Grand Canyon with Corinthian columns.

The rock of deep valleys and gorges has been sculpted into opulent pillars and capitals to decorate the temples and treasure houses of long-departed kings.

No wonder this heroic ruin was chosen for the finale of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade.

The so-called Rose Red City of the Desert is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a wonder to rank alongside the pyramids of Egypt.

But the bagpipe music of our midnight expedition isn’t the only connection between the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the United Kingdom.

Britain helped create the country back in 1921. And the current king, the blue-eyed, Oxford-educated Abdullah II, has an English mum.

But the latest link between the two nations is the new easyJet service which flies three times a week from Gatwick to Amman. The flights go out and back on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means you can tailor your visit to either a short break or a much longer trip.

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Petra is just a three-hour drive from the capital, so you can follow in the footsteps of Lawrence of Arabia and explore the Lost City – and the rest of this stunning
country – for as little as £106 return.

We started our Petra By Night walk with a beer in a 2,000-year-old bar – the Cave Bar at the Crowne Plaza.

Then we descended through a twisting 300ft-deep ravine, known as the Siq, for over a mile, led by a Bedouin flute player. It felt as if we were being guided into the under-world as we followed his trilling notes, our path lit by 1,800 candles.

Suddenly, the gorge opened out and in front of us, lit by hundreds of paper lanterns, was the stunning Treasury or Al Khazneh.

We were given sweet mint tea as a Bedouin played a guitar called a rababa with a bow and sang a haunting song before we moved on for our dinner date under the stars.

The following day, after a night at the lovely Mövenpick Hotel, we were up at dawn to make sure we didn’t miss the city in daylight.

The morning sun revealed the true scale of the place, including its extensive Roman ruins.

It also exposed the beautiful oxides which stripe the sandstone – the yellows of sulphur, the oranges and pinks of iron and the greys of cobalt and magnesium.

The whole place has been sculpted by wind and rain so some crags resemble badly-iced cakes.

Dating from at least 1,200BC, this was a city of 40,000 people at the time of Jesus.

It was a crossroads for two of the most important trade routes of the ancient world and was filled with camel caravans carrying silks and spices between China, India and the Mediterranean. Then, in the 14th Century, it simply vanished. It was lost until 1812, when a Swiss traveller tricked his way into the city by pretending to be an Arab from India.

It’s still quite a trek to visit Petra on foot but for children or the elderly you can take advantage of the donkey carts which run from the entrance to the site – or go one
better and jump aboard a camel.

Either way, it’s worth spending at least a couple of days visiting this unique place.

But Petra is just one of the many treasures Jordan has to offer and easyJet has teamed up with Low Cost Travel Group to offer some stunning holiday deals.

You can visit the spectacular desert scenery of Wadi Rum – where Lawrence Of Arabia was filmed – or the huge Roman ruins of Jerash.

There are Crusader forts like the one at Karak, Mount Nemo – from which Moses saw the Promised Land – and the pool where Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan.

Beach lovers and scuba divers can head for the Red Sea at Aqaba and for nature lovers there are the stunning reserves at Dana and Azraq.

We kicked off our trip in Amman before taking the Desert Highway to the bustling market town of Madaba to see the exquisite 6th Century mosaic of the Holy Land in the Church of St George’s.

We had lunch at the town’s Haret Jdoudna restaurant before heading to Petra, fuelled by delicious cardamom-flavoured coffee.

The food in Jordan is wonderful and the people are genuinely welcoming and friendly. We rounded off the trip by floating in the Dead Sea (the lowest point on Earth).

I bobbed for a bit in the oddly buoyant water before regressing to childhood by coating myself in gloopy black mud. All of which is supposed to do wonders for the skin but hurry, because by 2050 they say the Dead Sea may have dried out completely.

Just one of the many reasons to hop on a plane to this fascinating country.