Arabian delights

If I hadn't remembered from school geography lessons that the shores of the Dead Sea are the planet's lowest accessible point on dry land, then the late-night trip there from Amman's Queen Alia International Airport would have made that clear.

It was an hour's drive downhill - past the twinkling lights of smaller villages, down steeply through the dimly seen dark outlines of surrounding mountains, and yet further down towards the bright patch of sodium glare that was Jerusalem on the opposite shore.

It was a shame the children slept through it. In the morning they awoke to diffused sunlight that revealed luxury hotels, many with Middle Eastern themes varying from rustic village to grand Babylonian temple, forming a kind of pan-Arabian theme park.

Cleopatra, reputedly an early Dead Sea visitor, might have found the surrounds familiar. History fails to record whether she brought along any of her children by Julius Caesar or Mark Anthony, but our room at the Mövenpick had a Star Wars quality our son found delightful: sun-dried mud and straw on the outside but high technology inside (satellite television, broadband internet). It was the perfect start to a family holiday.

A winding route through a labyrinth of mock villages and still further down from terrace to terrace led to a shore dotted with reclining figures who were reading, chatting, or keeping an eye on their own wandering children. The walled-in hotel compound was clearly an outpost of Europe, and the dress code was "skimpy".

The water had a viscous quality - not oily, greasy or syrupy, but in between. Rich with bromine and magnesium it was also as much as 10 times saltier than the average ocean, and this provided built-in water wings, perfect for a four-year-old boy not yet able to swim.