On a recent return visit to Jordan, my companions and I were greeted by friendly people all over the country. A long history of neutrality and peacemaking is paying off for Jordan, which has major attractions for tourists, including the "rose-red" city of Petra; Jerash, the largest ancient Roman city outside Rome; the glorious desert region of Wadi Rum; and world-class resorts on the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. Get a glimpse of one of the wonders of the world in my article, Petra: Lost City of Stone.

One of the unexpected treasures of Petra are the Bedouins who live nearby and spend their days in and around the park: insoucient little girls selling trickets; leather-faced old men; young men offering horse cart rides.

Climbing in the hills above Monastery el Deir, a colossal monument hand-carved into a mountainside a couple of centuries ago, my friend, Lee, and I came across a man in a red kaffiah (the traditional Arab headress) with two little boys, who were tending a blackened tea pot over a tiny fire. We said hello and expressed our wonderment at the sight of the stupendous monastery, and he asked if we would like to see a cave wherein a carved temple was hidden. He took our hands as we scrambled up a steep, rocky hill to the cave, then patiently smiled and turned from side to side as we took pictures. He spoke few words of our language. We spoke none of his. Back with the boys, he gave us mint tea in tiny glasses.

On the way back down to the main center of Petra, Lee met a woman and her daughter selling jewelry. She mentioned that she liked the woman's dangling, green glass earrings, and the woman promptly took them off and gave them to her, in spite of Lee's protestations. We learned later that the Bedouins, and many other Jordanians, as well, will literally give you the clothes off their backs if you admire them.

Another day, as we drove out of Amman on a daytrip to a Crusader castle, we watched dozens of buses, vans and cars, filled with waving people and plastered with signs and banners, head into the city. Later we read in the Jordan Times that 250,000 Jordanians had gathered in support of their government's stand against harboring terrorists and against war. Now, when was the last time you heard of a peace rally in an Arab country?"